Friday, November 14, 2014

Network Access control (NAC)

Network access control is an embedded device or a virtual appliance which monitor network traffic and identify the data flow via network layers.After monitoring the patterns ,policies can apply on devices as well as users.It take over the control of the network environment & ease to manage whole network by a centralize console.

To get a brief idea what NAC is capable of ,following areas can discuss

1. Assets management
2. Compliance check
3  Corporate /Guest user access management
4. Threat management
5. Security management
6. Audit report

NAC is in a position where it can monitor traffic by using trap device or a span port which has configured with promiscuous mode.The best position is to place NAC connecting to the root switch.Where root switch is the always best path that traffic will flow through.

There are two methods to enforce the policies to the endpoints.
       Agent less
       with Agent

Basically a guest's endpoint information can't reach without administrative power of the host.Therefore NMAP,NBT Scans will run through the network to get the information.To get further
information agent can deploy to the endpoint via http .So agent can run as a process until guest goes out from the network.
Same scenario can run on hosts where domain admin have the privilege to send WMI data without use of the agent

When comparing with a syslog server or a log management server,remediation actions can proceed with a NAC  & which is a huge advantage .That is the main reason NAC is going to be a trend in organizations which try align with compliance  .Following are some of remediation actions a NAC can deploy.
              Assign to quarantine VLAN
              Update pushing
              Honeypot  counter attacks
              IP ACL blocking
              inline firewall rules

Technology Involvement

              Span /Mirroring Port
              Promiscuous Mode
              NMAP/WMI/NBT
              IP ACL
              Port Blocking

Compliance checking 

              HIPAA
              GLBA
              SOX
              PCI
              FISMA



               















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