Designing a network for a client Research Paper

Designing a network for a client - Research Paper Example The other challenge facing network security is hacking, which can be done from different sources. Most hacking is from the internet, where hackers target a particular network. A well-protected network should restrict access from outside since a computer from the outside cannot access a network infrastructure directly from outside. A proper design should cater for security measures to eliminate masquerading. A new design, for this reason, has to be introduced, which has additional features to enhance security (Wong & Yeung, 2009). Techniques such as NAT (Network Address Translation) should be used to deny access to the computers of a network from a remote computer. This makes it extremely hard to hack a network infrastructure from outside. The network infrastructure is at risk if one of its devices is compromised. Hacking from a device of the network infrastructure is much dangerous since passwords or authentication information about the network can be obtained with much ease. For instance, when a router is compromised, routing decisions can be influenced, and packet misrouting attacks can be launched easily from the compromised router. Hacking from a source close to the network infrastructure is extremely dangerous. Security measures such as installation of firewalls should be considered. Firewalls are installed to the boundary to protect the inside of a network (Wong & Yeung, 2009). A flat network design is much vulnerable to masquerading. In a flat network design, all the network infrastructure devices and end computers are connected together and do not have a clear boundary. This means when one computer is compromised, all the network infrastructure can be accessed by an attacker. When an end computer is attacked, all kinds of attacks can be launched on the network infrastructure the attacks include HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol), STP (Spanning Tree Protocol), and DHCP(Dynamic Host Configuration