Today’s networks are vulnerable to more than just cable infrastructure
failures and power outages. Because of the ubiquity of Internet connectivity,
strategic partnerships, and the dependence on electronic information coming
from external entities, organizations must create a well-defined security
posture for their networks that spells out possible vulnerabilities, defines
the threats, and describes the countermeasures that should be implemented to
mitigate the associated risks. In this module, a number of network security
vulnerabilities are discussed, and actual threat types are defined. Cisco
Systems has implemented a number of device level countermeasures to defend the
individual devices as well as the entire network from security threats. This
module describes some measures to secure Cisco’s multilayer switches based on
Cisco’s SAFE blueprint.