Nas Belfon

Walk into any server room, and you’ll see racks of blinking boxes. Some are routers, some are switches, and if it’s old enough, maybe a hub. They all move data, but in completely different ways. And in 2026, these same concepts live in the cloud, virtual switches, software-defined routers, and SD-WAN. The fundamentals haven’t changed.

Every device on a network needs an address. Without one, data has no idea where to go. An IP address is a non-negotiable part of understanding cybersecurity. In 2026, IPs aren’t just on laptops and phones; every IoT device, cloud instance, container, and serverless function has one. A single company might manage tens of thousands of systems across both physical and cloud infrastructure.

If you want to work in cybersecurity, you need to understand networks. It doesn't matter if you want to be a penetration tester, a SOC analyst, or a security architect. Networks are the foundation on which everything else sits. So let's start at the beginning.