There are several threats to network security in the Internet world. Effective network security is essential for targeting a number of threats and blocks them from intruding or spreading on your network. We can name few common ones like Trojan horses, Viruses, Spyware and adware, worms, Denial of service attacks, Identity theft and Hacker attacks.
Network security can be defined as any activities which are intended to provide protection to your network. Specifically, they protect the reliability, usability, safety and integrity of your data and network.
How Does Network Security Work?
You need to understand that just one solution alone can’t provide you the protection against a network threat. Multiple layers of security are very much required so that in case if one fails, others can still provide the security. All the components involved in a network security system work together to improve security and minimize maintenance.
Now, to accomplish network security support of both-hardware and software is needed. The software requires constant updating to keep up with the emerging network threats. Few of the most important network security components are:
- Anti-virus and anti-spyware
- Intrusion prevention systems (IPS) for identifying threats like zero-hour attack
- VPN or Virtual Private Network for secure remote access
- Firewall for blocking unauthorized access to the network
Firewall comes in both category-hardware and software; both of them can be used together. If you don’t have a hardware one, you can still use a firewall application for protecting your network. These days it is easy to find several firewall programs in the market. Many of them are free to use. Some of the larger software also provides firewall as a part of the package along with other applications.
Anti-virus software is equally important. No matter how hard you try to protect your network against security threat, still sometimes malwares, viruses and Trojansinfect your system. Even a silliest mistake is enough to put your network at security risk. Strong anti-virus software can help to keep your network safe. Anti-virus software quarantines and deactivates malware. Most anti-virus software, once installed, looks for viruses in your system by comparing each and every application on your computer against a huge list of malwares. In case of any match, the anti-virus software warns the user and tries to resolve the issue with the program. But in order to remain effective all anti-virus software needs to be updated periodically. Many programs support an auto-updating of anti-virus software on regular basis that will keep up with the new virus definitions.
Similar like anti-virus software, anti-adware or anti-spyware programs also scan your system for any security threat to your network. Adware and Spyware can be very harmful as they can track user’s online activities to hack any important information.
Are you are thinking when to start these programs? Most of these programs in real time already have an active scan mode for keeping a check on your computer. For those which don’t have this feature, you can either manually run a scan or set up a scanning schedule for later scan. So it is always recommended to scan your system regularly- at least few times a month.