Network Security Revolution
Network security is always been the most concerning topic for the experts. Every one wishes to keep their network safe from hackers. We are in the age of network security revolution.
Many companies have been trying to launch a product that keeps the network safe from hackers. As the volume of data keeps increasing it is indispensable to focus on network security.
There are certain expectations from sender of data so that it reaches the receiver safely. The confidentiality of the users are greatly broken if the data is susceptible to hacking. There is a great need to maintain the confidentiality and data integrity. The users want to identify the sender of the message and the receiver must have the ability to prove that a message has been sent by the sender. Lots of money has been invested to bring a revolution in network security.
There are four aspects of network security which includes privacy, authentication, integrity, non-repudiation. The basic thing expected by any user of the network is privacy. Every sender expects only the receiver to receive the message. To all other people the method must not be in the readable form.
Authentication is another factor which expects the sender to take full ownership of the data and it prevents any hacker to compose data and send it in the name of the sender.
Integrity is the factor which expects the sender to receive data in the form sent by the sender and there must not be any change in the data while being received by the receiver.
Non repudiation is the factor which enables the receiver to prove that a message has been sent by the sender. This is an important point which is greatly expected by the users of the data.
Privacy of data is ensured by encryption and decryption techniques. Secret key encryption and decryption is a popular method in which a secret key is used by both the parties. These algorithms are normally called the symmetric algorithm as the use the same key in both the directions. Public key algorithm is another method and is rather easy as it employs a common key to decrypt the message. One can combine the public key and secret key algorithm to generate good mechanisms that guard’s privacy.
Digital signature is another method where the whole document is signed in order to maintain authentication, integrity. One can sign the document using public key encryption and a private key is used to encrypt while a public key is used to decrypt.
There is one more method called pretty good privacy which tries to guard all four aspects of security.
Access authorization is another method used to protect the security. It is based on a very simple concept where a person who requires entering must know a pass code. Thus it is based on archaic idea and it ensures good security.
There are also access authorizations techniques based on public keys where public and private keys are used by the requesting party.
There are lots of advancements in network security and many algorithms try to cover the loopholes in security in order to ensure a hacker free network.
Ali Bitazar is computer network security engineer