Isolated or Air Gapped? — TechKnowSurge

About this interactive

To isolate something is to set it apart. A PC that browses the internet, or a web server customers must reach, should stay connected. But a database server on the back end has little reason to talk to the outside world, so it sits on an isolated network shared with the web servers in front of it and nothing else. Anyone after its data has to get through those servers first. Isolation comes in other shapes too: a guest network that reaches the internet but none of the internal servers, and client isolation, which stops one guest's device reaching another's through the access points. In each case the system keeps the connections its job needs and loses the rest. An air gap removes every connection to the outside. The systems inside may be cabled to each other, but nothing links them to the internet or to any other network. That suits the most sensitive data, and a machine with a virus that must not reach anything else until it is cleaned. The test is simple: does any link lead out? If one does, even through another server, the system is isolated, not air gapped.

What you'll learn

Tell an isolated system, cut off from everything except the few connections its job needs, from an air-gapped one with no connection to any outside network
Recognize the uses the lessons give for each: a back-end database reached through the web servers, a guest network kept from internal servers, guest devices kept from each other; and highly sensitive systems with no outside connectivity at all

Aligned to

CompTIA Security+

3.1 Compare and contrast security implications of different architecture models.

2.5 Explain the purpose of mitigation techniques used to secure the enterprise.

3.2 Given a scenario, apply security principles to secure enterprise infrastructure.

Key terms

Air-Gapped Network: A network that is physically isolated from other networks and the internet, preventing any unauthorized connectivity or the spread of threats to or from connected systems.
Wireless Client Isolation: A wireless network feature that prevents devices connected to the same access point from communicating directly with one another.
Guest Network: An isolated network segment provided to visitors that is separated from the organization's internal network to prevent unauthorized access to internal resources.
Network Segmentation: The practice of dividing a network into smaller segments to improve performance and limit the spread of security threats.

Topics

Network Isolation Air Gapped Network Guest Network Wireless Client Isolation Interactive Streak Sort

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