Book Image

Securing Network Infrastructure

By : Sairam Jetty, Sagar Rahalkar
Book Image

Securing Network Infrastructure

By: Sairam Jetty, Sagar Rahalkar

Overview of this book

Digitization drives technology today, which is why it’s so important for organizations to design security mechanisms for their network infrastructures. Analyzing vulnerabilities is one of the best ways to secure your network infrastructure. This Learning Path begins by introducing you to the various concepts of network security assessment, workflows, and architectures. You will learn to employ open source tools to perform both active and passive network scanning and use these results to analyze and design a threat model for network security. With a firm understanding of the basics, you will then explore how to use Nessus and Nmap to scan your network for vulnerabilities and open ports and gain back door entry into a network. As you progress through the chapters, you will gain insights into how to carry out various key scanning tasks, including firewall detection, OS detection, and access management to detect vulnerabilities in your network. By the end of this Learning Path, you will be familiar with the tools you need for network scanning and techniques for vulnerability scanning and network protection. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt books: •Network Scanning Cookbook by Sairam Jetty •Network Vulnerability Assessment by Sagar Rahalkar
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

Target scoping and planning


Defining and deciding upon a formal scope is one of the most important factors of a vulnerability assessment. While there may be a lot of information and guidelines available on using various vulnerability assessment tools and techniques, the preparation phase of vulnerability assessment is quite often overlooked. Ignoring properly complete pre-engagement activities may lead to potential problems, such as the following:

  • Scope creep
  • Customer dissatisfaction
  • Legal trouble

The scope of a project is intended to precisely define what is to be tested.

Theoretically, it may seem best to test each and every asset present in the network; however, it may not be practically possible. A detailed discussion with all the business units could help you gather a list of critical assets. These assets could then be included in the scope of the vulnerability assessment. Some of the common assets included in the vulnerability assessment scope are as follows:

  • Communication lines
  • E-commerce...