Guarding the Digital Realm: An Overview of Network Security Protocols“

Network Security protocols are mainly used by administrators to access remote computers. They are mainly designed to ensure data integrity during transit and to prevent access by unauthorized users. The major protocols used are Secure Socket Shell (SSH), Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), and Secure Socket Layer (SSL). Although these protocols serve the same purpose, there are minor differences among them as discussed hereunder.

            SSH is a protocol that fits at the top of the design at the layer of a single application, which makes it an application protocol by nature. SSH can be used as a technique that redirects communication from one address to those of other applications like HTTP and FTP. Secure Socket Layer is primarily designed to provide security for the transport layer. Unlike SSH which is a single application, SSL/TLS gives security by being implemented in several applications and is integrated at higher levels. SSL technology has the latest version called TLS and majorly uses HTTP.

             Internet Protocol Security was designed to provide security at the Internet Protocol packet layer. IPSec is not integrated at high levels. IPSec protocol can be incorporated into different servers like VPN concentrator, operating system’s kernel, and router. On the other hand, SSH is not designed to be incorporated into servers like VPV and firewalls. There is no interoperability between TLS/SSL, SSH, and IPSec. Each has unique uses in mind and operates at different levels of operation in the Transmission Control Protocol. TLS/SSL and IPSec is totally transparent at higher level protocols, but SSH is not. For one to utilize the transport layer security under SSH, you have to log into the user account. IPSec has many features as compared to SSH and SSL/TLS (Stallings, 2017).

References

Stallings, W. (2017). Cryptography and network security: Principles and practice.