Security Fundamentals
What is security?

A primary purpose of security is to keep intruders out. For most of history, this meant building strong walls and establishing small, well-guarded doors to provide secure access for a select group of people. This strategy works better for wired LANs than WLANs. The rise of mobile commerce and wireless networks make the old model unsuitable. Security solutions must be seamlessly integrated, more transparent, flexible, and manageable.

Security usually refers to ensuring that users can perform only the tasks that they are authorized to do and can obtain only the information that they are authorized to have. Security must ensure that users cannot cause damage to the data, applications, or operating environment of a system. The word security involves protection against malicious attacks. Security also involves controlling the effects of errors and equipment failures. Anything that can protect against a wireless attack will probably prevent other types of trouble as well. The balance between allowing authorized access and preventing unauthorized access is illustrated in Figure .


Interactive Media Activity

Interactive Activity: Fill Security Holes

This activity allows the student to match the correct network device symbol with its name.

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