Overview:
The exam topics specifically mention firewalls, access points and wireless LAN controllers
Study Notes:
- Firewalls - designed to prevent unauthorized access to your network
- Adaptive Security Appliances - ASA - A security device that combines firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, and virtual private network (VPN) capabilities. It provides proactive threat defense that stops attacks before they spread through the network.
- Next Generation Firewall - NGFW - A next generation firewall combines a traditional firewall with other network device filtering functionalities, such as an application firewall using in-line deep packet inspection (DPI) and an intrusion prevention system (IPS) among others.
- Next Generation Intrusion Prevention System - NGIPS - Advanced threat protection addressing known and unknown threats through fully integrated advanced malware protection (AMP) and sandboxing solutions. Rapidly detect, block, contain, and remediate advanced threats.
- Firepower - Sourcefire, Inc was a technology company that developed network security hardware and software. The company's Firepower network security appliances are based on Snort, an open-source intrusion detection system (IDS). Sourcefire was acquired by Cisco for $2.7 billion in July 2013. Cisco® FirePOWER™ Services delivers an integrated threat defense across the entire attack continuum — before, during, and after an attack. It combines the proven security capabilities of the Cisco ASA Firewall with industry-leading Sourcefire® threat and advanced malware protection features in a single device.
- Access points - allow wireless devices to connect to a wired network. The access point itself connects to the network via a wired connection. It acts similar to a switch where it trunks all traffic over the wired connection to an upstream switch. Wireless devices connect wirelessly to the access point and can be segregated from each other.
- Wireless LAN controllers - net admins use these to manage many different access points. When access points are configured to pull their configuration from a wireless controller they are called lightweight access points. A wireless controller can manage a large number of access points at once, which reduces the amount of management overhead required.
- Switches - connects devices together and transmits layer 2 packets between them (switching).
- Routers - connects devices together and transmits layer 3 packets between them (routing).