Networking Project Musings

I recently configured a new firewall router and switch for my home network and wanted to talk a bit about that project. Networking is fun, and should be fun. It takes holistic, big-picture thinking when you are designing a new build or modifying an existing one. Information security requires the same kind of comprehensive thinking, and understanding networking is critical to being successful in the security field.

The first thing that came to mind when thinking about what I wanted to share about this project is the importance of not disclosing on the internet the make and model of any of your networking equipment. Attackers usually perform several types of recon when crafting an attack, and if they know what equipment you are using they can look up vulnerabilities for your specific equipment, making their job easier, and they’ll be more effective at successfully crafting a targeted attack against you.

Another thing I want to say is basic but bears constant repeating, since in 2024 individuals and businesses are still getting compromised all the time due to using weak passwords–change the default usernames and passwords on your networking gear. I always recommend taking this advice a step further and storing your strong credentials in a password manager. Better yet, let the password manager create a strong password for you and store that. Do not save creds on a spreadsheet or on a sticky note on your computer screen. Ensure that you are the only person that will have access to this information, and that it won’t be visible to wandering eyes.

There are a lot of resources online about how to configure networking equipment. There are paid and unpaid courses you can sign up for. There’s YouTube, Network Chuck, the CCNA, and so much more. One of the most overlooked resources is the instruction manual. Seriously! If you really want to know how your device functions and know all the ins-and-outs, start here. Similarly, if you are running any kind of tool on your PC like nmap, for example, you can learn so much about the tool, including its capabilities and features, by appending the ‘--help’ flag like this, ‘nmap --help’ and this will give you a treasure trove of information on how this tool can be used.

I repurposed my ISP’s all-in-one router/switch/wireless access point as a dedicated WAP by plugging it into my switch and putting the device in bridge mode. No sense in buying a new WAP if you can just use something you already have. Winning.

Lastly, I chose a new private IP address for my firewall router and configured DHCP settings to dynamically assign IP addresses to all my devices within a certain range, and all on the same subnet. I assigned static IP addresses to my switch and a few VMs. I also disabled DHCP functionality on my switch so as not to interfere with DHCP configurations on my firewall router. I’ll be creating VLANs in the future once I’ve identified which devices I want grouped together.

Tech tip of the week:

I had some corrupted files on my Windows 10 VM, so I wanted to diagnose the issue by running ‘sfc /scannow’ in a command prompt window with administrative privileges. However, I wasn’t able to interact with the Start menu, search bar, or icon tray with a mouse click. I worked around this by opening task manager with a ctl+alt+del keyboard shortcut and clicking on File and then, Run new task. I typed ‘cmd’ and checked the box that said, “Create this task with administrative privileges,” and hit OK. Voila. I have a command prompt window with admin privileges and can now run my ‘sfc /scannow’ tool to diagnose my issues. The tool was able to repair some of my corrupted files, and my Start button, search bar, and system tray icons came back to life with a mouse click. I immediately took a snapshot of my VM after completing this operation for extra peace of mind.

Bonus tip:

I turned off screen timeout on that VM using only keyboard shortcuts, as well by pressing Win + R to open the Run dialog box, then typing ‘powercfg.cpl’ and pressing Enter to open the Power Options window. From here, I changed my settings accordingly.