Network Security
Network security protects computer networks from unauthorized access and misuse — firewalls, segmentation, monitoring and encrypted transport working together.
Network-Level Protection
Add bot defense to your network security
What is Network Security?
Network security protects data as it moves between systems: who can reach what, and whether traffic can be read or altered in transit. It is a different discipline from application security, which protects what happens once a request arrives.
The distinction matters because the two are often sold together and defend against different things. A correctly segmented network does nothing about a credential-stuffing attack on your login form, and a bot layer does nothing about an attacker who already has a foothold inside your estate.
The main controls
| Control | What it does | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Firewalls | Allow or deny by address, port and protocol | Cannot see inside encrypted application traffic |
| Segmentation | Bounds what a foothold can reach | Only effective if the segments are actually enforced |
| TLS everywhere | Encrypts and authenticates connections in transit | Does not protect a compromised endpoint |
| VPN and private access | Lets remote systems reach internal ones | A frequent initial access route when unpatched |
| Egress filtering | Stops compromised hosts calling out | Routinely forgotten; most defences only watch inbound |
| Monitoring | Makes lateral movement visible | Useless without someone reading it |
Egress filtering is the one most organisations skip and most regret. Nearly every intrusion needs to call home, and outbound control is where that gets caught.
Where it stops being the answer
Network security assumes a meaningful inside and outside. With applications in several clouds, staff anywhere, and the valuable endpoints deliberately exposed to the public internet, that boundary has largely dissolved — which is the argument behind zero trust, where being on the network grants nothing.
More specifically, the endpoints under attack on a web service are the ones that must accept traffic from strangers. A login form, a sign-up, a checkout and a public API cannot be firewalled off, because accepting requests from people you have never met is the point of them. No network control can distinguish a customer from a script at that boundary, because both are well-formed HTTPS from a residential address.
What covers that gap
Deciding whether a person is present, which is what human verification does, and pricing each attempt through proof of work. Those sit at the application layer, in front of the flows that cost money, and they are the layer Prosopo provides. The controls in the table above remain necessary and remain somebody else's product — being clear about that division is more useful than claiming the whole stack.