PRINT VERSIONNork, Yerevan, Armenia (October 1 - October 12)
Background > NATO ASI
Today we use computers for everything from banking and investing to shopping
and communicating with others through email or chat programs. Regardless of
whether or not we consider our communications top secret, we do not feel
comfortable about strangers reading our messages, using computers at an
unknown boundary to attack other systems, sending forged email, or examining
personal information stored on our computers (such as financial statements).
Network security is concerned with creating a secure inter-connected network
that is designed so that on the one hand users cannot perform actions that
they are not allowed to perform, but on the other hand can perform the actions
that they are allowed to. Network security not only involves specifying
and implementing a security policy that describes access control, but also
implementing an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) as a tool for detecting
attempted attacks or intrusions by crackers or automated attack tools and
identifying security breaches such as incoming shellcode, viruses, worms,
malware and trojan horses transmitted via a computer system or network.
Intrusion detection is traditionally achieved by examining network
communications, identifying heuristics and patterns of common attacks,
and taking action to alert network and system managers.
An intrusion-prevention system is a system which when combined with intrusion
monitoring and detection via an application layer firewall may terminate
connections. Thus, an intrusion prevention system exercises access control
in order to protect computers from exploitation by inspecting network traffic
(for signs of intrusions) at a deeper level and can make decisions based
not only IP address or ports but also on application content and may also
act at the host level to deny potentially malicious activity.
Today's computer infrastructure is exposed to several kinds of security
threats ranging from virus attacks, unauthorized data access, sniffing and
password cracking. Understanding network vulnerabilities in order to protect
networks from external and internal threats is vital to the world's economy
and should be given the highest priority. Computer and network security
involves many important and complicated issues and this gathering of scientists
will help not only in raising awareness but also in teaching participants the
state-of-the-art of security techniques.