Chapter Review– Cisco Security Tools
The previous chapter considered all the various attacks—or rather, problems in network security. This chapter showed how each of these threats can be countered. The chapter began with an overview of authentication tools and concepts, including SSO, zero trust, 2FA, and passwordless. While many future-looking members of the information technology community hold that passwordless solutions are the obvious choice, passwordless still faces many challenges.
One of the most important topics considered in this chapter is password complexity. Every information technology professional should be able to build strong passwords and know how to manage passwords. Another important topic this chapter considered is detecting and countering spam and phishing attacks. Social engineering attacks through electronic media—email, text messages, and private messages—are the most common way attackers gain access to a network.
This chapter could scratch the surface of encryption, a complex topic. Some engineers and researchers spend their entire careers working in and around encryption. Finally, this chapter outlined various VPN options, including their positive and negative aspects.
The next part of the book moves into network troubleshooting, management, and configuration. Chapter 21 kicks off the next section by explaining basic troubleshooting concepts.
One key to doing well on the exams is to perform repetitive spaced review sessions. Review this chapter’s material using either the tools in the book or interactive tools for the same material found on the book’s companion website. Refer to the online Appendix D, “Study Planner,” element for more details.
Table 20-3 outlines the key review elements and where you can find them. To better track your study progress, record when you completed these activities in the second column.
Table 20-3 Chapter Review Tracking
Review All the Key Topics
Table 20-4 lists the key topics for this chapter.
Table 20-4 Key Topics for Chapter 20
Concepts and Actions
Review the concepts considered in this chapter using Table 20- 5. You can cover the right side of this table and describe each concept or action in your own words to verify your understanding.
Table 20-5 Concepts and Actions
Building a network, or even taking over a network that is already running, is a small part of a network engineer’s job.
Networks must be configured. Networks must be managed.
Networks break and must be fixed.
This part of this book considers configuring, managing, and troubleshooting networks—although not in that order.
Chapter 21 kicks off this part by discussing the concepts and tools of managing a network. The first section of Chapter 21 covers the importance and kinds of documentation, the second section of the chapter considers the observability problem and the law of large numbers. The final section of Chapter 21 covers the practical tools and techniques used to connect to a network device.
Chapter 22 once again begins with theory, in this case the theory of efficient and effective troubleshooting. Formal troubleshooting skills are rare in computer networking. The chapter then considers the troubleshooting process and finally the importance of packet captures.
Chapter 23 walks through configuring and troubleshooting a small network using Cisco devices. This chapter brings all the theory into practice. This is also the last technical chapter in the book.
The chapters in this part of the book are as follows: