November 3rd of the year 1988, is remembered as a watershed moment in the history of the Internet. Morris Worm, the first computer worm on the Internet, was created 25 years ago by a Cornell University graduate student. The Morris worm was not a harmful worm, but it did have a lasting impact on Internet culture.

The Internet was like a tiny town before Morris released his worm, where people didn’t think twice about leaving their doors unlocked. Internet security was regarded as mostly a theoretical issue, with software vendors placing a minimal priority on security issues.

There is a paradigm shift now; Morris worm was motivated by intellectual curiosity rather than malice in the past, but this is no longer the case. According to a 2015 report, 71% of the represented firms had at least one successful cyber assault in the previous 12 months (up from 62 percent the year prior).

According to the survey data, 90 percent of organizations admitted to having a security issue among 5500 enterprises in 26 countries around the world. Furthermore, 46% of the companies lost sensitive data as a result of an internal or external security attack. The average cost of recovering from a security breach is US$551,000. Small and medium-sized businesses spend about $38,000.

Large organizations appear to be the most vulnerable to incidents involving a third-party contractor’s security failure, employee fraud, cyber espionage, and network intrusion, with average total losses much higher than other categories of security incidents.

Let’s take a look at some of the most common security threats.

  • DoS

A denial of service (DoS) attack occurs when a person or organization is denied access to a resource that they would normally expect to have. These assaults are quite widespread, accounting for almost a third of all network attacks examined in the paper. Overloading the resource with unauthorized service requests is a common strategy.

  • Browser Attacks

Browser-based assaults target end users who are surfing the web, with the potential to propagate throughout the enterprise network. They may unknowingly download malware disguised as a bogus software update or application as a result of the attacks. Malicious and corrupted websites can also infect visitors’ computers with malware.

  • Brute Force Attacks

The entrance door is being kicked down by a brute force attack. It’s a game of trial and error to guess a system’s password. To crack passwords for a computer or a network server, the Brute Force Attack password cracker program simply uses all possible combinations. It’s straightforward and doesn’t make use of any novel techniques.

  • SSL/TLS Attacks

TLS ensures the integrity of data exchanged between two parties (server and client) while also providing reliable authentication on both sides. Data delivered over an encrypted connection is targeted by SSL/TLS attacks. If the attack is successful, the unencrypted data can be accessed. SSL assaults were more common in late 2014, but they continue to be prevalent today, accounting for 6% of all network attacks investigated.

Because increased usage of technology helps businesses maintain a competitive advantage, most companies are compelled to hire full-time IT security experts to protect their networks from the fast-increasing industry of cybercrime. The approaches used by security experts to fully secure an enterprise network system are listed below.

  • Penetration Testing

Penetration testing is a type of hacking that network security specialists do to check for vulnerabilities in a network. IT professionals utilize the same tactics that hackers use to access a network to identify network security weaknesses during penetration testing.

  • Network Access Control

Network Access Controls are supplied in a variety of ways to allow the end user to control network access. NACs provide a defined security policy that is backed up by a network access server that handles access authentication and authorization.

Network security is a battle against attacks, and many firms are competing to assist businesses in securing their network infrastructure. Solutions have been developed by companies such as IBM, Symantec, and Microsoft to combat the global problem of network security threats. These cutting-edge items have a lot of potential and are currently being employed by forward-thinking businesses.

  • Intrusion Detection

Intrusion detection systems can detect suspicious activity or actions of unauthorized access on a company’s network. A virus scan, a study of general network activity, a system vulnerability check, a check for unlawful programs, file settings monitoring, and any other unusual actions are all part of the investigation.

Characteristics of Good Network Security Solutions

There should be four essential characteristics in a true security solution:

  • Identify Potential Threats

Targeted attacks are multi-faceted and designed to elude various point technologies that seek to detect and block them. Once inside, the only way to discover these cyber dangers is to study the behavior of the different attack components and utilize analytics to figure out how they relate to one another.

  • Continuously respond

Today, it is less critical to determine whether or if an organization will be attacked; rather, it is more necessary to determine when and how much they can reduce the effect and restrict their exposure. This entails being able to react swiftly after the initial event has been recognized.

  • Defend Against Attacks

Malware is becoming more intelligent every day. They use heuristics to dynamically update their code. A capable solution should have an adaptive architecture that changes in response to the changing environment and dangers that today’s businesses confront.

  • Integration

Today’s dangers are complex, and a single piece of software or solution will not suffice. The protection system should be able to link with other security solutions from various suppliers to function as a single protection system, operating as a connective tissue for today’s disjointed cyber security architecture.

Market-based solutions

Cyber dangers, like infectious diseases, may never be completely eradicated, but they can be better handled and recognized, and their consequences reduced. What is the best way to accomplish this?  To combat today’s cyber threats, IBM has developed an enterprise-level “immune system,” an adaptive security architecture. QRadar, X-Force Threat Intelligence, Trusteer Pinpoint Malware Detection, and IBM Threat Protection System, a dynamic, integrated system to interfere with the lifecycle of advanced attacks and prevent loss, are just a few of IBM’s products.

The IBM Threat Protection System is a connective thread for today’s disconnected cyber security environment, integrating over 450 security technologies from over 100 suppliers.

With Symantec Advanced Threat Protection, Symantec is another prominent participant in enterprise network security technologies. Symantec ATP is a single-console solution that protects endpoints, networks, and emails. It integrates with Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) and Symantec Email Security cloud, so businesses don’t have to deploy any new endpoint agents.

ATP is the only threat prevention appliance, according to Symantec, that can work with all three sensors without the need for extra endpoint agents. Symantec’s goal with ATP is to provide end-to-end threat protection, prevention, detection, and response in a single pane of glass, providing enterprises with more value than single point products can. Multiple levels of prevention, detection, and response are combined in Symantec Advanced Threat Protection.