Authentication systems determine who you are and what you can access.
Despite their many advantages, networks can pose a security risk to organisations.
Data can be stolen or leaked by either outsiders ("hackers") or insiders (in what's known as an "insider attack"). Organisations must protect against this because of legal requirements, and possible reputational damage.
Multiple security methods can be used together in order to protect networks against these threats.
Authentication systems determine who you are and what you can access.
Methods of authentication include:
Once you have been authenticated, user access levels are used to determine what files, applications and resources you can access on the network. For example, some files on a school network might be only for teachers. User access levels would determine who can access these files and who should be restricted.
To keep your passwords secure, you should:
To clear any confusion: hacking a password manager will NOT give you someone's passwords, as the
passwords are encrypted. You will get the useless ciphertext version of their passwords. We'll learn more
about encryption right now ↓
Encryption provides protection against data being read if it is stolen or intercepted.
Encryption cannot stop data from being stolen or intercepted: it just makes the stolen data useless to the hacker.
Encryption algorithms convert the original plaintext data into the encrypted ciphertext data. A password (called a "key") is needed to decrypt the ciphertext back into the plaintext.
Unless a hacker also steals the key (which is pretty much impossible), they can't decrypt the data.
Firewalls are devices that act as barriers between the network and the outside world.
They inspect both incoming and outgoing packets, and aim to stop hackers and malware getting into the network, as well as packets from spyware going out of the network.
Note that firewalls can only reduce the likelihood of unauthorised access and that they do not directly protect against either the spread of malware within a network or the risk of downloading malware from external sources (like websites).
This means that a firewall will not prevent you from downloading a virus from the internet.
MAC Address Filtering limits network access to only whitelisted devices.
Each device has a unique Media Access Control (MAC) address on its Network Interface Card. The MAC addresses of accepted devices are whitelisted (allowlisted?) on the switch or Wireless Access Point. If a device has a MAC address which is not on the whitelist, it will be denied access to the network.
However, it does not identify who is using the device: just because a device is authenticated doesn't mean the user of that device is trustworthy. Also you can "spoof" (fake) a MAC address to join a network.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of biometric authentication methods?
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Advantages:
• It is impossible to forget your access credentials
• Biometric authentication is often much faster than other methods
• The access credentials cannot be (easily) stolen
Disadvantages:
• Biometric authentication often requires expensive hardware
• There is a much higher rate of false positives in biometric authentication