BIT243: Comprehensive Network Security Solution for Folks Company

This report provides a detailed network security solution for Folks Company, a financial consultancy with multiple branches. The report addresses the company's requirements for a secure network infrastructure, including secure connections between the central office and branches, secure email, file sharing, remote access, and application access. The proposed solution utilizes a star topology for easy monitoring and management. It covers key concepts of OSI security architecture, design and implementation of intrusion detection and prevention systems, security processes in a trust-based computing environment, and effective use of security techniques like digital signatures, authentication, access control, identity management, and public key cryptography. The solution also outlines the services and applications that will be provided, along with the interfaces and technologies employed to meet the company's needs, ensuring high-level security, availability, and performance. The analysis and evaluation section emphasizes the effectiveness of the proposed solution in meeting the company's security requirements.

Proposed Network
Security solution for Folks
Company
Student Name

INTRODUCTION
 Network security breaches have become more common and rampant across the world.
 Network security is a process of employing the various strategies and mechanisms to
protect and secure the network infrastructure from improper disclosure, misuse, destruction,
modification, and unauthorized access.
 By implementing the different security mechanism and strategies, users, application, and
computers are allowed to carry out their critical functions within a secure environment.
 Network security is a very important element that every organization and business whether
small or large should pay attention to at every level of operation.
 This report will describe the network security requirements for Folks Company which is a
financial consultancy firm located in Melbourne. The company has grown over the years and
has opened more branches in Sydney and Perth.

REQUIREMENTS
 Folks have opened up new branches in Sydney and Perth and since the company has
its data center in the central office, the company wants to implement a secure network
infrastructure that will enable the pilot offices to connect to the data center in the
central office.
 The company currently has 52 employees in the main office and the two branches will
have a total of 35 employees. The company is expected to grow and is planning that in
the next 10 years the company will have more than 500 employees.
 The company expects that the proposed network infrastructure will ensure high-level
security and availability, facilitate secure email communication, secure sharing of files,
video conferencing, remote access, and access to shared applications.

SOLUTION DESIGN
 This section will describe the various solution designs and measures that the network
designer will take in order to meet the network requirements set out by Folks
Company. This section will discuss various aspects including
 Network Topology
 Solution Description
 Services And Applications, and
 Interfaces And technologies.

Network Topology
 The proposed network topology for Folks Company is star topology.
 Star topology is a type of networking topology where all the nodes on the network are connected to a central device
such as a switch or a hub.
 All the data goes through the central device before being forwarded to the target device or address.
 Some of the advantages of using star topology include:
 Star topology will facilitate easy monitoring of the device and it will be easier to detect any unfamiliar traffic or activity.
 Due to the centralized nature of star topology, it will be easier to monitor and control all the network activities.
 Enforcing security measure is easy because it is done from a centralized device.
 Easy installation
 Easy scalability
 Easy management
 Easy to troubleshoot, and
 Centralization
 However, this topology has one main setback, that is, if the central device fails, then the entire network is brought
down. Some of the other advantages of start topology that Folks will benefit from include:. The diagram below shows
the proposed topology

Solution Description
 This section will discuss the various network security aspects that need to be
implemented for Folks company network infrastructure to ensure that all the critical
resources are secured.
 The following aspects will be discussed, key concepts of OSI security architecture,
design, and implementation of detection and prevention system, the process for
security in the trust-based computing environment, and evaluate the effective use of
security mechanisms such as public key encryption, identity management, access
controls, authentication, and digital signatures.

Solution Description: Key Concepts of OSI Security
Architecture
 It is important that a systematic way is developed in order to assess the security needs of Folks
Company effectively and analyze and select different security policies and products.
 The OSI security architecture will is one of the elements that can be considered when developing a
network security solution and focuses on three main issues including security attacks, security
mechanism, and security services.
 Security attacks refer to those actions that may compromise the security of the network infrastructure and
Folks needs to identify these actions and implement countermeasures. Some of the security attacks that
Folks may face include denial-of-service attacks, interruptions, fabrication, modification, interceptions among
others. The proposed solution will assess all the threats and possible attacks and implement the necessary
procedures to address them.
 Security mechanism will be designed to identify, prevent, or recover from a security attack including the use
of digital signatures, access control, encipherment, use of antiviruses, firewall among others.
 Security services refer to services that are designed to enhance the security of data processing systems and
transmission of information within an organization. These services will be implemented in the Folks Company
network to counter security attacks. A security service can make use of one or more security mechanisms.
Some of the security services include data confidentiality, authentication, data privacy, non-repudiation,
integrity, and access control.

Solution Description: Design and Implement Detection and
Prevention Systems
 It will be necessary to implement intrusion detection and intrusion prevention system for
Folks company.
 An intrusion detection system (IDS) will be responsible for detecting any unusual activity,
malicious coding, abnormal traffic, or unusual behavior before they occur.
 Upon detecting any malicious activity within the network, the IDS will prompt the intrusion
prevention system (IPS) to prevent the activity from occurring or causing damage to the
network.
 The IPS are also responsible for adding the source address to the blocked list and logging
the attack. IDS and IPS can be implemented in either IPS on a stick, inline, or tap/span
mode.
 IPS on stick deployment model will be employed because Cisco infrastructure will be used
because packets can be forwarded to several IDS/SPS sensors using Cisco Ethernet Channel
Technology.

Solution Description: Processes for Security in a Trust-
Based Computing Environment
 There are several processes for security in a trust-based computing environment that has to be met when
setting up the network infrastructure for Folks Company.
 The network security analyst has been facing numerous challenges for using the traditional Centaurus
protocol for providing security in trust-based environments. This protocol cannot apply for the proposed
solution because having a central command point for a single group or building is impossible because it
demands that every user will have specified access right.
 This is impractical for Folks Company network infrastructure because of the increasing number of
employees/users. As a result, this paper has proposed that Folks should use distributed trust processes
such as dynamic rights and models to meet the requirements of the trust-based computing environment.
 Dynamic rights consider trust management as developing trust relationships rather than its contemporary
meaning of reckoning trust. This approach involves assigning security credentials to users, formulating
policies for access control, authentication of the users, and delegation, providing access control by
validating that the credentials of the initiator satisfy the policies, and enabling entities to modify the rights
of access of other entities by deferring or delegating their rights of access to third parties.
 In this case, access rights are dynamic and change depending on revocations and delegations. This
approach will best suit Folks Company to ensure that when an employee is not around, another one will
take up his/her roles after being delegated the duties.

Solution Description: Effective Uses of Security Techniques
 The proposed network security solution for Folks Company will make use of several security techniques such as
authentication, digital signatures, access control, identity management, public key cryptography.
 Digital signatures will be used to validate the integrity and validity of any data transmitted over the network.
 Authentication is important in ensuring that the identity of who they say they are is verified. This will involve the use
of usernames and passwords to access the network resources. For authentication, two-step verification will be
employed for Folks Company.
 Access control is another security technique that will be employed in the proposed solution. Access control is an
additional feature of authentication that is used to restrict some segments of the network resources. For instance, the
users in the procurement department will only access the resources relevant to procurement and will not have access
to other resources of another department.
 Identity management will be used to identify, authenticate, and authorize users or group of users to get access to the
network resources such as data and applications by relating user restrictions and rights with developed identities. The
main objective of using identity management is to make sure that only users that are authenticated are allowed to
access the specified network resources which they are authorized.
 Public key cryptography will be adapted to facilitate the use of public and private keys for encrypting the data being
transmitted over the network. The main benefit why this technique will be used in the proposed solution is because it
does not need any kind of secure channel for initial sharing of secret keys between the communicating parties. This is
an added advantage to the company.

Services and Applications
 The proposed network solution for Folks Company will ensure that all the requirements both
functional and nonfunctional, have been met. The proposed solution is expected to offer the
followings services and applications:
 Allow the users to communicate via email securely
 Allow users to securely share the file through a file transfer protocol (both uploading and downloading)
 Allow the users to access the network resources remotely in a secure way through terminal emulation.
 Video conferencing and,
 Access shared applications on the application server

Interfaces and Technologies
 Every interface will be connected to a virtual or physical device. By doing so, it will be easy for
the network administrators to monitor and troubleshoot individual interfaces without having to
affect the entire network.
 Every server in the data center will have one network interface that is configurable for every
ethernet card available.
 The solution will define the localhost interface or the virtual network interface (loopback)
which is used to connect processes and applications on one workstation to other processes
and applications.
 To enhance the security of the network, one interface for the company LAN and one to service
the internet traffic will be configured

ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION
 The proposed network solution will effectively meet the security requirements of the
company without compromising on the services, performance, and availability.
 By employing the use of star topology, the company will be able to monitor its network
usage and security from central command. This makes it easier for the network security
analyst to detect or identify any malicious activity within the network.
 With the help of intrusion detection and intrusion prevention system, the network security
will have an easy time monitoring and managing the network security and taking necessary
action when an issue arises. The various strategies employed in the proposed solution will
be effective enough to serve the needs of the company.
 Using security techniques such as digital signatures, authentication, access control, public
key cryptography will go a long way in ensuring the security of the network. This is because
only authenticated and authorized users will be granted access to network resources.

CONCLUSION
 In conclusion, the network analyst has attempted to provide a network security
solution for folks Company.
 The company has planned to open up two new branches in Sydney and Perth and
wants the two branches to be connected to the central office securely.
 By implementing the different security mechanism and strategies, users, applications,
and computers will be able to carry out their critical functions within a secure
environment.
 In order to secure a network, one needs to have a complex combination of various
networking components and software such as anti-virus, firewalls, and routers.

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