Chapter List

Introduction

Deploying a network security policy is a significant and serious undertaking. Making good decisions in this matter will save a great deal of money and prevent many future security issues on your network, while making incorrect or hasty decisions will lay the foundation for an insecure network infrastructure. Creating a network security policy will affect your organization in a number of ways, including (but not limited to):

• Financial A new network security policy may require you to purchase new equipment and software, such as firewalls, IPS (intrusion protection/prevention system), anti-virus software, new routers, and more. You ll likely also incur additional salary costs for security personnel trained to manage the new hardware and software.

• Network availability You may have to install new hardware and software on your network to comply with a new network security policy, which may impact your overall network availability as you install and configure this infrastructure. Therefore, the process needs to be well planned to reduce risks, costs, and downtime for your clients and internal users.

• Usability In almost every case, the security of a computer system is inversely related to its usability. As a result of your network security policy, you may reach a state where the usability of the network is drastically reduced. Your network security policy needs to balance security against usability, so that your security policy does not become so...