Network, Server and End Point Layer

The network, server, and endpoint security layers represent the core technical infrastructure of the organisation’s information security architecture, providing the logical equivalent of the physical security layers that the preceding section addressed for the built environment. Where physical security governs who can physically access the organisation’s facilities and hardware, the network, server, and endpoint security architecture governs what the organisation’s systems can communicate, how the servers that host its most sensitive data and critical processes are protected from both external and internal attack, and how the endpoint devices through which every member of the workforce interacts with the organisation’s information estate are secured against the threats that the modern adversary targets through these most prevalent and most diverse entry points.

The Security Consulting function’s advisory on this technical security layer must bridge the technical depth that the subject matter demands and the business relevance that the advisory function’s strategic purpose requires. The network security architecture whose configuration the security consultant must understand with sufficient depth to assess its adequacy against the current threat landscape must also be communicable in the business consequence terms that the executive’s resource allocation decision and the board’s risk governance oversight require to engage with the investment case that the security architecture’s maintenance and improvement demands.

Network Security #

The network security architecture governs the connectivity through which every communication within the organisation’s IT environment and between that environment and the external world flows, creating the enforcement point whose controls determine whether the traffic traversing the network reflects the organisation’s authorised communications or the adversarial activity whose network characteristics the detection and prevention architecture must identify and block.