Chapter 7 – Data Communications

Publisher Summary Data communications—as defined by the Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) exam objectives—encompass the structures, transmission methods, transport formats, and security measures used to provide integrity, availability, authentication, and confidentiality for data transmitted over private and public communications paths. This chapter takes a look at a broad range of information that is required for the SSCP exam. The chapter begins by looking at networking concepts such as local area networks, wide area networks, and the open systems interconnect model. Under these, the chapter describes the risks associated with each. Then the chapter moves on to the subject of firewalls and virtual private networks and their related technologies. And finally, it explores the common network attack methods and ways to defend against them.