Building Blocks of Cybersecurity: My Journey Through Networking
Hey there! It’s been a while since I talked about networking on my blog, but that’s because I’ve been busy pursuing my dream of becoming a certified cybersecurity professional. However, I quickly realized that networking is a crucial component of cybersecurity, and that’s why I decided to continue my CCNA networking course taught by the one and only DAVID BOMBAL.
As I progress on this journey, I’m excited to share with you some of the most important concepts I’ve learned about networking. First up is the client-server model. In simple terms, a server is a computer program or device that provides functionality or resources to other devices known as clients. The server listens to requests from clients on different port numbers using specific protocols. These protocols are a set of rules used for communication between devices, and they enable clients to access various services made available by the server.
One practical example of this concept is when you browse the web using your browser. Your browser is automatically configured to talk to port numbers like “80” HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) or “443” HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) to access the webpage you’re interested in. Moreover, a server can run multiple services or provide multiple services on different ports to clients. This client-server model means that a client requests something from the server while the server provides the file or the service to the client.
To help illustrate some of these concepts, I got to see a practical demonstration using Cisco Packet Tracer. In networking, we use network diagrams to represent what a network looks like. Cisco Packet Tracer and GNS3 are some of the tools used to achieve this.
Another important aspect of networking is MAC addresses, which are the manufacturer’s way of giving a unique physical or hardware address to different devices that use a Network Interface Card (NIC). The second thing we need is an IP address, which allows for easy access to specific resources in a location. We use the “ping [ip address]” command in the command line to verify if an IP address is alive or not.
Throughout my journey, I also learned about different networking devices like repeaters, hubs, switches, routers, and firewalls. A repeater is a device that receives a signal and repeats or retransmits it from one port to another, extending transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction.
A hub is a multiport repeater because repeaters have limited ports. A switch, on the other hand, is a more intelligent device than the hub and repeater, and it reads the frames coming from an Ethernet.
A router uses IP addresses to route from one network to another, and it’s a layer 3 device. Routers typically route an Ethernet network, which is a LAN (Local Area Network) to a WAN (Wide Area Network). Firewalls, on the other hand, are networking devices that stop malicious outsiders from coming into the network.
In modern times, we use next-generation firewalls (NGFW), which are built with an IDS (Intrusion Detection System) and IPS (Intrusion Prevention System). An IDS warns you of malicious activity in a network, while an IPS prevents or stops malicious traffic from entering a network.
I hope you’ve found my journey as a cybersecurity enthusiast informative and captivating. I’m grateful that you’ve followed me this far, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about my post. Please leave a review so I can continue to improve my writing skills. Thanks for reading!
