Security Network Basics: a Beginner's Guide

In Episode #75 of the RUCKCast podcast, the comprehensive security posture of RUCKUS Networks and their wireless and wired products is discussed with Adam Cutts, a Senior Director of Program Management and Business Operations for CommScope NICS (Networking Intelligent Cellular and Security), focused on the importance of cybersecurity both within products and solutions and organizationally. RUCKUS Networks, a leading provider of networking solutions, has a vested interest in security, and the hosts, along with Adam, discuss the commitment of RUCKUS Networks to ensuring robust wired and wireless security measures are in place to safeguard products and protect customers' networks and the information on those networks from potential threats. And, as all three discuss, it is recommended to start with security network basics - if you don't close off the obvious and manageable network holes, adding new tools on top of a poor configuration won't provide the boost in network safety you are looking for!

How does RUCKUS determine security needs?

The episode delves into the various network security features integrated into RUCKUS Networks' products, from industry standards like 802.1X to RUCKUS innovations like DPSK, highlighting their proactive approach to cybersecurity. From access control, encryption protocols, firewall, and security policies to regular software updates, the company emphasizes the importance of staying ahead of emerging threats.

Additionally, the podcast sheds light on RUCKUS Networks's dedication to continuous improvement through vulnerability assessments and penetration testing. By subjecting their systems to rigorous testing, they aim to identify and address potential weaknesses, ensuring that their products remain resilient against evolving cyber threats.

What are some of the hot topics within and beyond security network basics?

The group also touches on hot topic issues like SDWAN, Zero-Trust, and SASE. A lot of times, these buzzwords can sound like alphabet soup and terms thrown about to confuse people, so they dedicate some time to talking about what these terms mean for end users. Additionally, as it is often hard to know where to get started, they touch upon how to approach securing your LAN and WLAN IP network traffic using tools and applications you may already have available, or leveraging security controls in cloud management platforms such as RUCKUS One(TM) to automatically patch and update across your network infrastructure, making life a bit easier for network administrators.

Specifically, there is considerable time spent discussing how RUCKUS thinks about the "edge inwards" that is, how users need to be able to connect their devices, attain network access to connect to the internet, utilize sensitive information to do all the stuff they need to do, receive authentication for what is necessary to perform business, and be able to securely work within their corporate networks. And how can they do all this without increasing the risk of data breaches or other security incidents. This "edge inwards" approach means that user need to receive authorization in a timely fashion to do their work, but use tools like multi-factor authentication, strong password enforcement, and authorized network devices to make sure unauthorized users or devices aren't connecting and requesting access, just as an example.

How do government and industry security standards affect RUCKUS's approach to wired and wireless security?

This is another area touched on within the podcast. There is a heavy emphasis on security standards, whether that is from the US Federal or other central governments, NIST guidelines, GDPR, or even numbers of bits in encryption algorithms. These are all inputs into the way RUCKUS builds out products and solutions, with the intent of allowing customers to detect attackers while still allowing Wi-Fi and wireless network access, using all the latest things like network segmentation for BYOD and corporate mobile devices.

Adam sums up the security story nicely in this excerpt from the episode:

“But the story is no good if there is nothing… behind it. Security is a consistent ground-up approach. That means that if you look at our products, if you look at the standards that we implement, if you look at our recommendations and best practices that we publish on what to do with those products and how to configure them, everything from the ‘where you're putting the wire into the switch to and connecting it out to a wall outlet’, to making sure that you have devices that aren't rogue devices to making sure that you understand what happens when someone tries to connect and you don't want them to. That is built into our portfolio of products. So fundamentally our product portfolio is fully supportive and driving the security story.”

Listeners gain valuable insights into how RUCKUS Networks takes a proactive and multi-faceted approach to cybersecurity, striving to maintain a strong security posture for their products to safeguard their customers' data and privacy.

To listen to the full episode, look on your favorite podcast application for the RUCKCast and make sure to subscribe to the podcast to be notified of the newest episode. You can also listen to this specific episode on Buzzsprout, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Where should you go to learn more about RUCKUS Solutions and Security?

There were many solutions and capabilities touched upon within the cybersecurity podcast. Resources for these can be found below, dealing with government, product, industry, security capabilities like virtual private networks, network edge, wide area networks, and various other topics.

For more information on Authentication, Onboarding, Firewall, VPN, check out these product pages

• RUCKUS Cloudpath Enrollment System for authentication, onboarding, and tenant networks.
• RUCKUS WAN Gateway for firewall, SD-WAN, firewall, unified threat management (UTM) and micro-segmentation-focused network access control (NAC)

For more information on US Federal Government, state, local, and education solutions and capabilities, utilize these resources

• RUCKUS US Federal Government Solutions
• Primary K-12 Education
• Higher Education