Networking & Telephony
The pandemic has sped up the adoption of modern networking and telephony technology to allow businesses to be more flexible amongst the chaos. Hence, as IT networks continue to evolve, the importance of network management heightens. But what is networking and telephony? The connections between modern computer and mobile networks that are formed from a broad spectrum of telecommunication technologies based on physically wired, optical, and wireless radio-frequency methods. Although increased use of networking and telephony technology has brought about a number of benefits throughout the pandemic, the complexity in deploying and managing such networks can lead to several challenges.
Secure and Reliable Home Networks
Working from home is the new norm for the majority of tech-enabled businesses. However, the significant shift in paradigm from your workforce location on your office network to being distributed can make cracks appear in a network's security and reliability. Without the security protections of office systems, your business and its employees are more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. For example, Phishing emails have spiked by over 600% since the start of the pandemic.
As we prepare for life post-pandemic with employee’s continued reliance on their home network, ensuring reliable home security is essential to reduce the risk of sensitive information falling into the hands of criminals. For more reasons why your business needs dependable security against criminals, check out our cyber security blog.
Network Segregation for Security and Regulatory Compliance
Regulations such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI/DSS) demand certain constraints on systems involved in the processing of cardholder data. As such, all businesses that process, store or transmit payment card data are required to comply with the standard to limit the number of network intrusions. In addition to being an effective tool that limits the blast radius of network intrusion from cybercriminals, network segregation is often used to limit the flow of cardholder data. By segmenting networks into zones of similar compliance requirements, the scope can be reduced thus simplifying security policies. In general, greater segmentation equals greater security. However, a core challenge is zone maintenance over time whilst avoiding over or under segmentation.
WiFi Access Point Management
Providing office WiFi for your business as well as guest WiFi brings about its own set of challenges such as combating radio interference, dead-spots and misuse. Knowing what equipment to use for the job can be a daunting task given the rapid pace of technological evolution and vast set of standards.
VoIP Management
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony is the technology that allows you to make a call directly from your computer and other data-driven devices by converting your voice into a digital signal. VoIP has become the de-facto technology solution for telephony. However, in modern organisations with sizable portions of the workforce requiring VOIP connectivity, the intricacies of the SIP protocol can often prove time-consuming to administer for network engineers. To successfully adopt and take advantage of the technology, businesses must understand the challenges associated with VoIP. As communications run through the internet they must go through several servers. This exposes businesses to threats of malicious attacks and data breaches therefore it is essential to implement sufficient VoIP management.
IoT Security
The Internet of Things (IoT) has brought an explosion of internet-connected devices to the market. IoT typically surrounds the communication between a network of connected devices which can be controlled and monitored remotely. However, a lot of these devices are often poorly secured or have weak default passwords that are easily guessed, providing easy targets for cyber criminals to use as a foot-hold on your network. Additionally, IoT link to the challenges of home networks as users can install rogue or counterfeit IoT devices within their secure networks, without authorisation. Resulting in heightened risk to security breaches.
How Can You Overcome the Challenges of Networking and Telephony?
With Navos, you gain access to solutions that enable effective home and office working for your business. From a laptop, PC, VOIP or mobile, to fully converged networks and data centres design, Navos can help.
