What is Network Traffic Monitoring and Analysis?

With the continuous growth of organization intranets, computer network security administrators need to be wary of the numerous traffics that go through their networks and how to handle them. Without network traffic monitoring and analysis, an organization’s cybersecurity solution will not be complete.

What is network traffic monitoring?

Network traffic monitoring or network traffic analysis is a security analytical tool used by computer network security administrators to detect issues that can affect functionality, accessibility, and network traffic security. Therefore, it is a network security technique for checking the network traffic of internet-connected devices, the type of data the devices are retrieving, and the bandwidth level each device is consuming.

Furthermore, network security admins and other certified network defenders use a network security program for carrying out network traffic monitoring tasks. By joining network security training and certifications, organizations can swiftly troubleshoot and work out network security threats whenever they arise.

Why should you monitor the traffic on your network?

The reasons for monitoring traffic on your network are

◉ Improving internal visibility into connected devices on your network.
◉ Staying ahead of outages
◉ Elimination of blind spot
◉ Spotting malware activities
◉ Gaining immediate ROI
◉ Troubleshooting operational and security issues and fixing them faster
◉ Detecting of weak protocols and ciphers
◉ Meeting compliance necessities
◉ Gathering of historical records and analysis of things occurring on your network.
◉ Gathering report on SLAs, etc.

What problems will monitoring application and network traffic solve?

Monitoring network traffic helps to solve the following

◉ Identifying applications or protocols that are running on the network.

◉ Monitoring of client to server network traffic

◉ Identifying of bandwidth hogs down to a user or device level

◉ Troubleshooting of the network and application performance issues

How to monitor network traffic on your router?

You can monitor your network traffic for network security threats directly through a router or third-party network monitoring software. In this section, you will learn how to use a router for monitoring network traffic.

The steps to take when monitoring network traffic are stated below.

1. You will first need to know your router’s local IP address before you start the process.

2. You can know the IP address by entering this command prompt.

C:\Users\Comparitech>ipconfig

3. Your IP address will be listed close to Default Gateway and will look like this:

.

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .: 192.168.1.6

4. After knowing your IP address, open your web browser and then search your IP address.

5. A page will show requesting for your router’s admin username and password. However, if you do not configure your router, you can check the router’s documentation for the default credentials.

6. After logging in, the router’s interface will be displayed. The data that you will see will depend on the vendor that produces your router. You can then look for a status section or list of devices.

7. After finding the section that displays network traffic, you can then discover the devices that use the most bandwidth. However, if there is not enough information, you will need to use a network monitoring tool.

How to Analyze Network Traffic?

You can analyze network traffic using a variety of network security programs available in the market. It is best to keep in mind that the tools for network security devices used for monitoring network traffic are classified into two types, known as deep packet inspection tools and flow-based tools.

Furthermore, companies can use network monitoring software for monitoring network traffic when there is an increase in the stress on their network.

Which technology is used for analyzing and monitoring traffic in network and information flow?

There are lots of network traffic analyzer tools that can be used to analyze and monitor traffic. They are NetFort LanGuardian, SolarWind Netflow Analyzer, WireShark, Paessler Packet Capture Tool, Microsoft Message Analyzer, etc.

Source: eccouncil.org