Wireless networks and the cloud
Wi-Fi made life easy, but its signal leaks beyond the walls, so anyone nearby can try to join. That makes encryption essential:
| Standard | Status | Advice |
|---|---|---|
| WEP | Broken for years | Never use it. |
| WPA2 | Common, acceptable | With a long, strong passphrase. |
| WPA3 | Newest, strongest | Choose it if your devices support it. |
Watch outAt Nakhla's office: one Wi-Fi network for staff and a separate guest network that only reaches the internet and can't see company devices. That's the VLAN lesson in practice.
Cloud computing means renting servers and services from a provider such as AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud instead of buying them. There are three main models:
| IaaS | Infrastructure as a service: rent virtual servers and networking; you install the OS and software. Example: Amazon EC2. |
| PaaS | Platform as a service: upload your app and the provider runs the servers and OS. Example: Azure App Service. |
| SaaS | Software as a service: use ready-made software in the browser. Examples: Microsoft 365 and Odoo Online. |
The key cloud security idea is shared responsibility. The provider secures the cloud itself; you secure what you put in it. Moving from IaaS to SaaS shrinks your share, but your data and your users' access always stay yours.
| On-premises | IaaS | PaaS | SaaS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data and access | You | You | You | You |
| Application | You | You | You | Provider |
| Operating system | You | You | Provider | Provider |
| Servers and storage | You | Provider | Provider | Provider |
| Network and building | You | Provider | Provider | Provider |
Watch outMany cloud data leaks didn't happen because the provider was hacked, but because a customer left storage or a database publicly open by mistake. Correct configuration is part of your job.