Essay: Computing Paradigm Scenarios And Security: Issues, Improvements, And Mitigation.

Discuss about the Computing Paradigm Scenarios And Security.

Networking is a design and use of network, which includes the selection and use of telecommunication protocol including the use of cabling, switches and routers for managing the network. Networking refers to the exchange of information and resource sharing among the different devices connected over a particular network. Therefore, ensuring proper security in networking is to be ensured in order to prevent the unauthorized access of the information and computer resources. This is necessary because generally, a business connects all their systems and computers over a common network, and security issue in a single device can affect the entire system or put the system into risk. The report discusses the different security issues associated with the networking and the different improvements in the networking system over the years [3].

The security issue in networking can arise from vulnerability present in the security system that is exploited by a security risk or threat.  The different security issue that may arise in networking includes, security breaches, loss of data along with the threat of malicious attacks. Therefore, ensuring proper measures is essential in order to reduce the vulnerability of the network. Over the years, different researches have been conducted in this field to avoid these network security threats. This includes, use of different security devices, firewalls and antivirus software in the network and devices, to detect and prevent the malicious use and unauthorized access of information from the system.  Other security measures that can be taken in order to prevent the unauthorized access to the confidential data stored over a particular network includes encryption of system’s data in order to prevent any unauthorized access [2].

In order to eliminate the security issues of the system, the use of VPN or virtual private network is widespread across the organization. This is because the virtual private network helps in creating a secure link for protecting the information exchange over a particular network. It prevents anyone from accessing and modifying any information while it is being transferred across the channel [1].

There are different cause of network security problems, which includes the technology weakness, policy weakness and the configuration weakness [5]. The use of technology in every business operation is widespread and therefore, some unknown inherent weakness and vulnerabilities in a network can sufficiently act as a huge threat in a particular network. Similarly, lack of proper policy management in a network leads to security threats in a network. This includes lack of a proper disaster recovery plan, lack of policy for changes in hardware and software of system along with the lack of proper security monitoring.

Security Issues in Networking

Every networking device is subjected to different threats that require implementation of proper preventive measures for detecting and eliminating these vulnerabilities from the system. The different security issues associated with networking are as follows-

1. Hacking into a network is one of the primary security issues associated with networking. Hacking refers to the unauthorized use of data and servers. This can be prevented by use of proper intrusion detection system in the network.
2. Denial of Service attack is less harmful yet one of the most common security issues in networking. There had been a considerable increase in the rate of DoS and DDoS (Distributed Denial of service attack) in different networks over the years [4]. In this attack, the attacker floods the servers that overwhelm the victim resources making it impossible for the legitimate users in accessing the system. This might further result in a system crash, thereby stopping the entire operation of the network [6].
3. It has been observed over the years that the different security issues in the network arise from the misconfiguration of the systems and servers and not by any vulnerability. Misconfiguration of the servers results in the firewall breaches that lead to the loss of data and data theft.
4. Botnet is another major issue that is observed on networking security. A lot of improvement are needed in this area in order to prevent the accordance of such attacks [7]. A botnet is a system that is been hacked by an attacker in order to forward viruses and spams to the computers that are connected over a common network [9].
5. Shared computer over a particular network is a threat as a number of people can access these systems.
6. Another major security attack in networking is the password attack, where the hackers are able to determine the password of a network and can able to access it without the knowledge of the owner. This is very difficult to prevent, as many hacking software is used in order to access the password and therefore, it is one the major security issues in networking. 

Vulnerabilities in Configuration is one of the major causes of the networking security issues and therefore, proper configuration of the firewall in a system or a network is essential in order to prevent it.  The steps involving proper configuration of the system are illustrated below-

1. All the ports of the server that are not in use should be blocked, as this will prevent the opening of the unwanted ports to launch an attack.
2. The configuration of the server of a network should be in accordance to an average hit rate. This is because if the attacker can access the main server, it can degrade the performance of the network by sending unwanted spam and emails.
3. The VPN implementation for disaster recovery should include the proper encryption methods [9].
4. The wireless networking system if implemented in a network should be subjected to proper authentication method preferably WPA2 as WEP is more prone to attacks [8].

There are various advantages and disadvantages of evaluating the different security issues in networking. It helps in understanding and identifying the different vulnerabilities present in a network. Knowledge about the security issues in a network is essential for mitigating the risks associated with the system. Different researches over the years have considerably helped in unveiling the different security issues associated with networking and introduction of different risk mitigation approaches that can be implemented in order to eliminate the problem.

One of the major disadvantages is that improper use of different risk mitigation approaches might have a negative effect in the networking system, leading to the risk of misconfiguration security issue.

Over the years, the networking security issues have increased by many folds, however, there is a considerable advancement in breach detection tools such as, improve in security and event-monitoring system.  The use of multifactor authentication and encryption has considerably helped in increasing the security of the system. The security assessment tools are emerging over the years that are able to detect the network vulnerability thus reducing the occurrence of network security attack [11].

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that there are certain network security issues that are associated with networking, which includes the hacking, botnet attack, DDos attack and so on. This can be prevented by proper system configuration and use of proper intrusion detection systems. Proper configuration of the hardware and software is necessary for detecting any present threat in the network and eliminate the threats. A lot of improvements in the field of networking has been observed over the years and thus at present, it becomes possible to detect the a threat present in the system. 

References

[1] Stojmenovic, Ivan, and Sheng Wen. "The fog computing paradigm: Scenarios and security issues." In Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS), 2014 Federated Conference on, pp. 1-8. IEEE, 2014.

[2] Stolfo, Salvatore J., Malek Ben Salem, and Angelos D. Keromytis. "Fog computing: Mitigating insider data theft attacks in the cloud." In Security and Privacy Workshops (SPW), 2012 IEEE Symposium on, pp. 125-128. IEEE, 2012.

[3] Jung, Taeho, Xiang-Yang Li, Zhiguo Wan, and Meng Wan. "Privacy preserving cloud data access with multi-authorities." In INFOCOM, 2013 Proceedings IEEE, pp. 2625-2633. IEEE, 2013.

[4] Zhang, Heng, Peng Cheng, Ling Shi, and Jiming Chen. "Optimal DoS attack scheduling in wireless networked control system." IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology24, no. 3 . 2016: 843-852.

[5] Shin, Seungwon, and Gu. Guofei, "Attacking software-defined networks: A first feasibility study." In Proceedings of the second ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Hot topics in software defined networking, pp. 165-166. ACM, 2013.

[6] Bogdanoski, Mitko, Tomislav Shuminoski, and Aleksandar Risteski. "Analysis of the SYN flood DoS attack." International Journal of Computer Network and Information Security 5, no. 8. 2013: 1.

[7] Zhao, David, Issa Traore, Bassam Sayed, Wei Lu, Sherif Saad, Ali Ghorbani, and Dan Garant. "Botnet detection based on traffic behavior analysis and flow intervals." Computers & Security 39. 2013: 2-16.

[8] Ambavkar, S. Pranav, U. Pranit, B. Patil, B. Meshram, and Pamu Kumar Swamy. "WPA exploitation in the world of wireless network." Int J Adv Res Comput Eng Technol 1, no. 4. 2012: 609-618.

[9] Lim, Sharon, J. Ha, H. Kim, Y. Kim, and S. Yang. "A SDN-oriented DDoS blocking scheme for botnet-based attacks." In Ubiquitous and Future Networks (ICUFN), 2014 Sixth International Conf on, pp. 63-68. IEEE, 2014.

[10] F. Ahmed, Z. U. Butt, and U. A. Siddiqui. "MPLS based VPN Implementation in a Corporate Environment." Journal of Information Technology & Software Engineering 6, no. 5. 2016: 1-7.

[11] Eldardiry, Hoda, Evgeniy Bart, Juan Liu, John Hanley, Bob Price, and Oliver Brdiczka. "Multi-domain information fusion for insider threat detection." In Security and Privacy Workshops (SPW), 2013 IEEE, pp. 45-51. IEEE, 2013.