When you have a computer and you work on a network one of the most important things you can provide for you business is good network security. This term describes the things that make up the underlying network infrastructure, plus policies that have been set up by the administrator of the network system. The security is in place to protect the network against people receiving unauthorized access to databases, communication and other valuable information on your network.



Unfortunately, trying to make your network more secure can be somewhat difficult because there are numerous points that a person can attack in their attempt to get access. This act of getting onto a network your not allowed is called hacking. In trying to setup network security the administrator is taking measures that will prevent any attempts or success in gaining network access, even from one of your own computers.

In that case, if access cannot be gained to one computer the network is safe. It is possible to stop a hacker during the beginning of the attack, but some may get in further than you would like. Some of these attacks are, of course, a virus that can be set lose in your computer and thus corrupting the network and possibly create a problem with all the computers on the network if it's not caught in a timely manner.

Most security precautions for networks require that any users with access to the network need to be authenticated. This means that you will probably have not only a username but a distinct password to use to access the network as well. Once the computer verifies that this information is correct it will allow you access to the network. This is a great way to prevent someone who isn't allowed access from getting onto the system, but it will not block worms that can be transmitted via the network. In order to fight this you should get what is called an intrusion prevention system, it will help to identify worms and anything that may be malicious in nature and stop it from accessing your network.

The network administrator may also use a decoy such as a Honey pot that will hopefully act as a warning tool and prevent further access to those unauthorized users. For a home network it is fairly easy to set up security, but with bigger companies it becomes a bit harder.

Ways to protect your home are firewalls, and software programs that watch for viruses like Norton. With a medium sized business you will need a firewall that is more advanced with a much stronger Antivirus, in addition to changing of passwords on a monthly basis.

Larger businesses will want a very strong firewall, a strong Antivirus, change of passwords bi-weekly, network analyzer. Even schools need to protect their networks with an adjustable firewall, strong Antivirus, and many other things. As you can tell as you go up in size of company the security measures to take to protect your network become more in depth.