The Invisible Achilles’ Heel of Network Security

The Invisible Achilles’ Heel of Network Security

Not too long ago, we tweeted an article about the biggest hacks of 2018 and  yet another has just been revealed. This is becoming commonplace. The trend seems to be indicating that too many people have become complacent in their security protection. Hacking of any company’s data is BIG business – more so than most people realize.

According to CSO Online  about 58 records are stolen EVERY SECOND! Even though smaller breaches go unreported, larger ones are usually reported and, at an estimated average cost of $141 per record, the bill for a breach can be staggering.

Sticking your corporate head in the sand and saying “It won’t happen to me” is a big mistake. It is far better to put resources in place to ensure you have done everything you can, to defend yourself. Unfortunately, firewalls, anti-virus, anti-malware, strong passwords, biometric devices, and physical security measures are not always good enough. As a business manager (or owner) you also need to train your IT staff in what to look for that may indicate a threat, what to do during an attack, and how to mitigate potential future intrusions… BUT there is another layer of weakness that is often overlooked…

You may remember the story, from Greek mythology, of Achilles. He was the baby who, it was foretold, would die young. His mother took him to the river Styx, and dipped him in, holding him by the heel, in the hope that the magical water would give him the power of invincibility. Into adulthood, he survived many battles however, one day, a poisonous arrow was shot at him and hit him in the (un-dipped) heel. He died soon afterwards.

Forbes  revealed that, even after you have spent money on putting a strong security protocol in place to protect your company, and trained your IT team, your other (non-IT) employees can cause your company’s security downfall. Any employees who fail to follow simple security-oriented steps (either accidentally or deliberately) can cause gaping holes in otherwise competent network security.

It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is, employees can still be the cause of major weaknesses in your network security. Even if you think that training them is going to be more than the current budget can handle, that price, whatever it may be, is still going to calculate out as being significantly less than the cost of mitigating the devastating result of a full-scale breach.

Some of the old phrases or “sayings”, that we all heard our Grannies tell us, containing their sage wisdom, have never been more appropriate: “a stitch in time, saves nine” advises us that it is better to make your employees aware of the basics BEFORE they let you down, and potentially cost you a fortune, than leaving it until it is too late, and then being forced to “close the barn door after the horse has bolted”!

Training ALL your employees < not just your IT team > in network security is essential, because your company may already possess its invisible “Achilles’ heel”.

NC-Expert has been aware of this problem for a long time and offers training classes in network security – both for IT professionals AND for non-technical employees.

Contact us TODAY to discuss how we can help your employees prevent disaster!

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Non-Technical Security Training:

  • CertNexus’ CyberSAFE
  • also NC-Expert exclusive training (contact us for details)

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Professional Network Security:

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If you would like to learn more about how NC-Expert can help,  contact us TODAY  !

NC-Expert Blog

Wi-Fi Myth Series - Myth #12: Auto Channel Selection ALWAYS Knows Best

By Rie Morgan • August 28, 2026
Automatic Channel Selection sounds like one of those features we should simply be able to trust: the APs monitor the RF environment, the Controller gathers data, an Algorithm considers interference, utilization, neighboring APs, channel availability, and other metrics, then Radio Resource Management (RRM) does its “thing” and selects the best channels. Wonderful! One less problem for the wireless engineer to worry about... except RF rarely cooperates with anything quite that neatly! Modern RRM systems are remarkably capable, and automatic channel selection can dramatically simplify the management of large wireless environments, but an algorithm can only make decisions based on the information it collects, the parameters it has been given, and the objectives it has been designed to optimize. That makes automation a powerful engineering tool. It does not make it the engineer.

Wi-Fi Myth Series - Myth #11: Interference Is Always Someone Else’s Wi-Fi

By Rie Morgan • August 20, 2026
When Wi-Fi performance suddenly deteriorates, interference is often the first culprit to be suspected and, when this (interference) enters the conversation, attention tends to turn immediately toward neighboring Wi-Fi networks. “Someone must have installed another AP.” “The office next door is probably using our channel.” “There are too many SSIDs around here.” Sometimes, this diagnosis is exactly right, but RF interference has a much larger cast of characters than just neighboring APs. In fact, some of the most frustrating wireless problems occur when the interfering device isn’t speaking 802.11 at all! The spectrum doesn’t particularly care whether the energy occupying it came from an enterprise AP, a Bluetooth headset, a microwave oven, or something considerably stranger. To a Wi-Fi radio trying to communicate, unwanted RF energy is simply unwanted RF energy. Wi-Fi Has to Share the Neighborhood The 2.4 GHz band has always been something of an RF “community center”. Wi-Fi operates alongside Bluetooth, Zigbee and other technologies, while various consumer, industrial, medical, and electronic devices may also generate energy within or around the same spectrum. Microwave ovens are perhaps the most famous example. Their emissions can interfere with 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, particularly when clients are operating nearby. Bluetooth devices, cordless equipment, wireless cameras, sensors, and other transmitters can also contribute RF energy. Some interferers transmit continuously. Others appear periodically. Some hop frequencies. Others produce wideband noise. That last category can be particularly entertaining to troubleshoot... in the very specific sense of “entertaining” that wireless engineers use when they have been staring at spectrum analysis for three hours! The important point is that interference doesn’t need to understand Wi-Fi to disrupt it.

Wi-Fi Myth Series - Myth #10: The AP Is Up, So the Wi-Fi Must Be Fine

By Rie Morgan • August 13, 2026
There is something wonderfully reassuring about seeing a row of green APs on a wireless dashboard: APs connected; radios operational; no obvious alarms; everything green. Excellent! The Wi-Fi must be fine... Except, of course, the users are complaining that Teams calls are breaking up, handheld scanners keep disconnecting, authentication takes forever, and someone in Accounting has discovered that turning Wi-Fi off and back on again temporarily fixes everything. Welcome to one of the more persistent myths in enterprise wireless: if the AP is up, the Wi-Fi must be working. An operational AP tells us something useful... but it tells us surprisingly little about the experience of the clients actually using the network. “Up” is an Infrastructure State When a monitoring platform reports that an AP is up, it usually means the infrastructure can communicate with it. It tells us: - the AP has power - its Ethernet connection is functioning - it may have established its management or CAPWAP connection - its radios are probably operational - it hasn't disappeared into the networking equivalent of a “black hole” ...all good things. But none of those things proves that a client can successfully use an application. Consider what still has to happen after the AP proudly announces its existence. A client must: discover the WLAN associate authenticate obtain the appropriate network configuration reach its default gateway resolve DNS access the required network resources, and maintain sufficient RF performance to exchange data reliably. Depending on the environment, that journey may involve: 802.1X RADIUS DHCP DNS VLANs ACLs firewalls roaming mechanisms upstream switching WAN connectivity cloud services ...and several other systems waiting for their opportunity to make your afternoon more “interesting”. ;-) The AP actually being operational is merely one part of that chain!