What is network security?

How does network security work?

A variety of hardware and software solutions are deployed on user devices, servers, data centers, and in the cloud to secure networks. These solutions enable security teams to provide proper network authorization and block potential threats, by implementing security policies. Ideally, these products are configured in-line with broader business security policies and work together to enforce strong network security. The diagram below lists the various functions enabled by a network security solution.

What are the components of network security?

Network security includes physical, virtual, agent-based, and agentless solutions such as:

• Device profiling and visibility: Agent-based and agentless solutions providing visibility into type and behavior of edge devices connecting to the network. These visibility insights act as the first step of securing the network, and help security teams in device discovery, device profiling, and custom fingerprinting. Learn how HPE Aruba Network provides AI-powered device profiling and visibility.
• Authentication: Agent-based and agentless solutions providing role-based authentication for edge devices trying to connect to the network. A NAC (Network Access Control) solution authenticates user or device identity against a wide variety of identity sources, to support robust network security. Learn more about HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass, an on-premises NAC, and Cloud Auth, a cloud-native NAC.
• Role-based access security or authorization: Enforcing least privilege access to the edge devices and providing authorization to access only relevant part of the network by segmenting traffic based on identity or role and associated access permissions. HPE Aruba Networking implements this with dynamic segmentation and offers two forms of dynamic segmentation: centralized and distributed based on business requirements.

• Conditional monitoring: Continuous monitoring requires solutions that provide real-time threat telemetry by constantly monitoring edge devices. Different products work individually and together to track edge-device behavior and flag any potentially malicious activity to Network Access Control (NAC) for further action. Continuous monitoring solutions include:

  i) Unified threat management/IDS/IPS: Intrusion detection provides threat intelligence on malicious activities including command and control, ransomware, phishing, malware, spyware, trojans, and exploit kits. Intrusion prevention detects malicious activities and performs actions like blocking the traffic to protect against malicious activity. Learn how HPE Aruba Networking performs IPS and IDS with Edge Connect SD-Branch.

  ii) Web content classification, IP reputation and geolocation filtering: Content filtering blocks specific websites that are potentially harmful. Web content filtering helps identify websites that propagate malware, spam, spyware and phishing attacks, as well as websites with sensitive content such as adult or gambling content.

  IP Reputation services provide a real-time feed of known malicious IP addresses in 10 categories so IT security administrators can easily identify threats by type.

  Geolocation filtering services associate source/ destination IP addresses with location. It allows organizations to apply policies to permit or drop inbound or outbound communications with certain known malicious countries.

  Learn how HPE Aruba Networking EdgeConnect SD-Branch offers these security capabilities in one solution.

  iii) SIEM or interoperable products: SIEMs help security teams detect, analyze, and respond to security threats before they lead to huge losses. HPE Aruba Networking best-of-breed security solutions enable bidirectional communication with SIEM solutions from different vendors to enforce security based on threat telemetry. Interoperable HPE Aruba Networking security solutions can integration with more than 150 security vendors to establish and enforce robust network security. Learn more about the HPE Aruba Networking 360 Security Exchange program.

  iv) Secure SD-WAN: SD-WAN solutions are used to efficiently connect users and applications. The HPE Aruba Networking EdgeConnect Secure SD-WAN solution has built-in security capabilities and works with other elements within the security ecosystem to enforce strong network and application security from edge to cloud. Learn how HPE Aruba Networking EdgeConnect Secure SD-WAN incorporates security features like Next Generation Firewall, fine-grained segmentation with ClearPass, and intrusion detection and prevention.

• Enforcement and Response: When malicious activity is suspected of or observed participating in an attack, the NAC (Network Access Control) solution can take either guided or automated attack response to preserve network security. Learn how HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass works to deliver robust network security. HPE Aruba Networking also offers different types of firewalls for a robust network security enforcement.

  i) Firewall: A network firewall is hardware or software that restricts and permits the flow of traffic between networks. Network firewalls help prevent cyberattacks by enforcing policies that block unauthorized traffic from accessing a secure network. Learn how HPE Aruba Networking enforces strong security with Policy Enforcement Firewall.

  ii) Next Gen Firewall: Next Generation Firewalls add advanced capabilities like application-level packet inspection and intrusion prevention to traditional packet-filtering network firewall capabilities. Learn about HPE Aruba Networking Next Generation Firewall.