Table Of ContentNetwork Security Strategies
Protect your network and enterprise against advanced
cybersecurity attacks and threats
Aditya Mukherjee
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Network Security Strategies
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Contributors
About the author
Dr. Aditya Mukherjee is a cybersecurity veteran and an information security leader with
over 14 years' experience in leadership roles across information security domains, including
defense and law enforcement, financial services, health and public services, products,
resources, communications, and media and technology. His core expertise includes
cybersecurity strategy, strategic risk and cyber resilience assessment, tactical leadership and
development, GRC and security auditing, security operations, architecture and
engineering, threat management, security investigations, and forensics.
I would like to sincerely thank my mother and Shri. KumKum Roy Choudhury for all their
support and encouragement in my life. I would also like to express my gratitude to those
fine individuals and colleagues who have helped me tremendously in the formulation of
this piece of literature by sharing their knowledge and constructive criticism – Sameer
Bengeri, Pradipta Mukherjee, Abhinav Singh, and Deep Shankar Yadav. Dhanyavaadaha.
About the reviewer
Yasser Ali is a cybersecurity consultant at Thales in the Middle East. He has extensive
experience in providing consultancy and advisory services to enterprises regarding the
implementation of cybersecurity best practices, critical infrastructure protection, red
teaming, penetration testing, and vulnerability assessment, managing bug bounty
programs, and web and mobile application security assessment. He is also an advocate
speaker and participant in information security industry discussions, panels, committees,
and conferences, and is a specialized trainer, featuring regularly on different media
platforms around the world.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Section 1: Network Security Concepts, Threats, and
Vulnerabilities
Chapter 1: Network Security Concepts 8
Technical requirements 8
An overview of network security 9
Network security concepts 9
Network security components 10
Network and system hardening 12
Network segmentation 12
Network choke-points 12
Defense-in-Depth 13
Due diligence and cyber resilience 13
Soft targets 14
Continuous monitoring and improvement 14
Post-deployment review 14
Network security architecture approach 14
Planning and analysis 16
Designing 17
Building 18
Testing 19
Deployment 21
Post-deployment 22
Network security best practices and guidelines 23
Network Operations Center overview 23
Proper incident management 24
Functional ticketing system and knowledge base 25
Monitoring policy 26
A well-defined investigation process 26
Reporting and dashboards 27
Escalation 27
High availability and failover 28
Assessing network security effectiveness 28
Key attributes to be considered 29
The action priority matrix 30
Threat modeling 31
Assessing the nature of threats 32
STRIDE 33
PASTA 33
Trike 34
Table of Contents
VAST 35
OCTAVE 35
Summary 36
Questions 37
Further reading 38
Chapter 2: Security for Cloud and Wireless Networks 40
Technical requirements 41
An introduction to secure cloud computing 41
AWS' shared responsibility model 43
Major cybersecurity challenges with the cloud 43
Amazon Web Services (AWS) 45
AWS security features 46
Well-defined identity capabilities 47
Traceability 47
Defense in depth 48
Automation of security best practices 48
Continuous data protection 48
Security event response 49
Microsoft Azure security technologies 50
The Zero Trust model 51
Security layers 51
Identity management using Azure 52
Infrastructure protection using Azure 52
Criticality of infrastructure 53
Encryption 54
Identifying and classifying data 54
Encryption on Azure 55
Network security 55
Internet protection 56
Virtual networks 56
Network integrations 57
CipherCloud 57
Securing cloud computing 60
Security threats 61
Countermeasures 61
Wireless network security 62
Wi-Fi attack surface analysis and exploitation techniques 62
Wi-Fi data collection and analysis 63
Wi-Fi attack and exploitation techniques 64
Best practices 65
Security assessment approach 68
Software-defined radio attacks 70
Types of radio attacks 70
Replay attacks 71
Cryptanalysis attacks 71
Reconnaissance attacks 72
[ ii ]
Table of Contents
Mitigation techniques 72
Summary 73
Questions 74
Further reading 76
Chapter 3: Mitigating the Top Network Threats of 2020 77
Technical requirements 78
The top 10 network attacks and how to fix them 78
Phishing – the familiar foe 79
How to fix phishing threats 82
Rogue applications and fake security alerts – intimidation and imitation 83
How to fix rogue applications and software threats 84
Insider threats – the enemy inside the gates 85
How to fix insider threats 87
Viruses and worms – a prevailing peril 89
How to fix viruses and worms threats 91
Botnets – an adversarial army at disposal 91
How to fix botnet threats 94
Trojan horse – covert entry 94
How to fix trojan threats 96
Rootkit – clandestine malicious applications 96
How to fix rootkit threats 97
Malvertising – ads of chaos 97
How to fix malvertising threats 98
DDoS – defending against one too many 99
How to fix DDoS threats 100
Ransomware – cyber extortions 101
How to fix ransomware threats 103
Notable mentions 105
Drive-by download 105
Exploit kits and AI-ML-driven attacks 105
Third-party and supply chain attacks 106
Creating an integrated threat defense architecture 107
Keeping up with vulnerabilities and threats 107
Understanding various defense mechanisms 108
Safeguarding confidential information from third parties 108
Implementing strong password policies 109
Enhancing email security 109
Vulnerability management policies 110
Vulnerability management life cycle 110
Network vulnerability assessments 111
Utilizing scanning tools in vulnerability assessment 112
Exercising continuous monitoring 113
The NIST Risk Management Framework 114
The NIST Release Special Publication 800-37 116
Summary 117
Questions 118
[ iii ]
Table of Contents
Further reading 119
Section 2: Network Security Testing and Auditing
Chapter 4: Network Penetration Testing and Best Practices 122
Technical requirements 122
Approach to network penetration testing 123
Pre-engagement 124
Reconnaissance 125
Threat modeling 125
Exploitation 125
Post-exploitation 126
Reporting 126
Retesting 127
Top penetration testing platforms 128
Setting up our network 128
Performing automated exploitation 130
OpenVas 130
Sparta 131
Armitage 133
Performing manual exploitation 136
Kali Linux 136
Nmap 136
Nikto 139
Dirb 139
Metasploit 143
Browser Exploitation Framework (BeEF) 150
Burp Suite 153
Penetration testing best practices 155
Case study 155
Information gathering 156
Scanning the servers 156
Identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities 157
Reporting 158
Presentation 158
A few other practices 159
The concept of teaming 160
Red team 160
Blue team 161
Purple team 161
Capture the flag 161
Engagement models and methodologies 162
Black box 162
Gray box 162
White box 162
Summary 163
Questions 163
[ iv ]
