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CHAPTER 10
Compliance Within the LAN Domain
A LOCAL AREA NETWORK (LAN) has network devices that connect two or more computers. A LAN can be either simple or complex. If you have a wireless network device at home, you have a simple LAN. Let’s say you have a home cable modem connected to a wireless device (usually called a wireless router). The wireless router creates a LAN, bridging the WAN (Internet) to your home.
Organizations often view LANs much like utilities, such as electricity, water, or gas. The organization expects the LAN to be always available and always have capacity. It’s also thought of as a commodity that should be inexpensive to install and run. This puts tremendous pressure on LAN resources and technology teams. The constant demand for more resources and increased connectivity increases network complexity and can lead to intentional and unintentional control gaps. Intentional gaps in information security are simply risks that cannot be closed. These are risks the business must accept. Unintentional gaps are far more dangerous because they deal with the unexpected. Both intentional and unintentional gaps in information security or weaknesses can be exploited and can be identified in an audit.
Cybersecurity gaps are vulnerabilities that are prone to exploitation by cybercriminals trying to access your network. These gaps can exist in several places, including your physical surroundings, software, and hardware. Some vulnerabilities can be rectified with minimal effort and time, but detecting and solving most weaknesses will require a professional network audit.
A network audit helps gain visibility into any potential network issues, allowing them to be remediated before causing outages or impacting performance. In this chapter, we will review key LAN components that should be considered in the scope of a network (LAN) audit.