We have homes with outside walls, we have walls between our rooms even inside our homes. Humans dig privacy. Since we are much more familiar with the security of our homes, an analogy will help explain how network security works.
A home is like a network
You don’t open your home to just anyone, don’t do it with your network either.
A robber is like a hacker
Except the hackers are more like robbers with Hogwarts invisibility cloaks.
A lock is like a password
Having an easy to guess password is like using a popsicle stick for a lock & key.
A room lock is like a software password
Even when you are in your house or are logged into the network you still lock up some rooms, you’ll lock up access to some software programs too. Otherwise once a hacker is through the front door they’d have access to everything else too.
A jewelry drawer is like shared folders & files
You can shared folders & files public. This is an important decision since data of some sort is usually what a hacker is after, make sure you are deliberate in your security settings here as well and lock ’em if you don’t want ’em accessed.
A hi-tech scanner is like a firewall
Imagine you had some sick tech that could scan & alert you if someone brought something inside the house you didn’t want, like a gun or that awful sauerkraut that stinks up your house. A firewall scans for files that could contain viruses (like .exe files that execute commands) and doesn’t let them come in. At home this is usually a job your router does, at work there can be a dedicated piece of equipment.
A Star Trek teleporter is like a VPN
OK so this one is getting ridiculous. When you are in the office you can be verified as being in person, a VPN allows you into your network/house safely even if you are not physically there. To do so, you need to be extra sure so no one can just beam into your “house”/network from anywhere. This is usually why you need some extra security, like:
A 2nd form of ID is like two-factor authentication
This requires an app with a constantly changing number that only the network & your phone know. When they line up -click- you are in. A 2nd lock & key makes your home & network that much more secure and ensures that people who “beam” in are who they are.
A home owner is like a network administrator
Somebody has to be in charge of making the security decisions for this stuff. like the homeowner, the network admin will decide on a whole bunch of procedures to make sure the set of connected computers are protected from hackers & their ever evolving methods.
Of course, this goes a whole lot deeper, but the goal is just to give you a working model of how all of this stuff works together, so let’s move on to the thing that makes things like VPN’s even possible: the Internet!
