Is your XDR solution truly comprehensive? Find Out Now!

Search
Close this search box.
Get a Demo

Understanding the Significance of Network Traffic Analysis

  • Srestha Roy

Do you know that by 2025, cybercrime will cost the world $10.5 trillion annually? According to Cybersecurity Ventures. And most of these attacks begin with anomalies in network traffic patterns. 

So, how does an organization detect these threats before it gets too late? This is where network traffic analysis (NTA) comes into play. Through continuous monitoring of the data packets and analysis of network activity, NTA empowers organizations to lock down their networks, alert them to potential threats and normal network behavior, and ensure smooth performance. Let’s dive deeper into the importance of network traffic analysis in multi cloud environments and how it works. 

What Is Network Traffic Analysis?

Network traffic analysis is simply the process of monitoring, capturing, and analyzing the flow of information across a network. If an organization understands how information is moving, it can identify threat sources, optimize performance and gain insights into network traffic patterns.

Network Detection and Response (NDR) is dependent on Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) in order to watch, capture, and analyze network traffic for threats and anomalies. Through continuous examination of the way that information travels on a network, organizations are able to discover malicious activity, improve performance, and understand traffic patterns. NTA is a building block capability within NDR, assisting security operations teams to actually detect and prevent threats. If an organization understands how information is moving, it can identify threat sources, optimize network performance issues and gain insights into network traffic flow patterns. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) is a critical tool for organizations to monitor and secure their network communications.

Key Concepts

Network Packets

These are the basic units of data that are transmitted in a network. Each packet contains metadata and payloads, which helps systems route data efficiently. Packet analysis is important for interpreting network data and understanding where network traffic originates and where it is going. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) is essential for interpreting network data and understanding where network traffic originates and where it is going. To gain deeper insights into utilization, performance, and security of enterprise networks, it is essential to analyze network traffic data.

Data Traffic in a Network

This is the total volume and network traffic data flow data together. High volumes might be a sign of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack or only a growing demand network capacity that calls for resource optimization. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) helps in analyzing high volumes of network traffic to identify potential issues or growing demands.

NTA Security

This refers to the use of network traffic analysis software to identify and mitigate potential risks. For instance, unusual data flows might signify unauthorized access attempts or malware activities. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) is crucial for identifying and mitigating potential risks in network communications.

Think of your network as a busy highway. Just as traffic cameras monitor vehicles for accidents or speeding, a network traffic analyzer monitors data flows to detect potential issues or malicious activities.

Why Is Network Traffic Analysis Important?

Cyber-attacks take advantage of concealed network vulnerabilities, frequently remaining undetected until harm is caused. Without ongoing monitoring, these threats can become expensive data breaches and debilitating operational disruptions. 

Network Detection and Response (NDR) employs Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) to intercept and analyze data flows, allowing for rapid anomaly detection and proactive threat containment.

Lets see how:

1. Enhancing Security

  • Detecting Anomalies: Analyzing network traffic using NTA tools and algorithms helps identify unusual behaviors in network traffic behavior, such as unexpected spikes in traffic volume, strange patterns in data packets, or an increase in access attempts from unfamiliar IP addresses. These anomalies often serve as early indicators of cyber threats. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) tools and algorithms help in detecting anomalies and identifying potential threats.
  • Endpoint Network Traffic Analysis: Connected devices can be monitored, and it is ensured that no endpoint becomes a weak link. Endpoint-focused NTA detects compromised laptops, IoT devices, or mobile phones.
  • Malicious Network Traffic Analysis: Patterns in outgoing and incoming data can indicate malicious activities, such as ransomware trying to communicate with command-and-control servers.

For instance, organizations can easily detect phishing attempts by tracing suspicious outbound traffic to dubious URLs. This proactive intrusion detection systems can prevent sensitive data from leaking.

2. Optimizing Network Performance

  • Traffic Volume Analysis: Evaluating network resources and traffic volume is crucial as excessive traffic can slow down critical operations, especially during peak times. By analyzing where the data flow is concentrated, administrators can redistribute loads, ensuring efficient performance. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) helps in evaluating network resources and traffic volume to ensure efficient performance.
  • Analyze traffic pattern: It gives understanding at times of the day or special operations. It can give way for resource planning, for example, knowing that there’s a traffic spike every Monday morning, which makes it a good time to perform IT backups off-peak.
  • Continuous Monitoring: Through real-time network traffic monitoring, problems such as bandwidth saturation or packet loss are caught before becoming worse. This provides an uninterrupted performance both by the users and systems.

3. Backing Compliance and Reporting

  • Gathering Traffic Data: Monitoring network traffic is crucial as most statutes, like GDPR and HIPAA, insist that businesses maintain vast records of network activity. Network security analysis makes data gathering much easier, ensuring companies stay in compliance without doing all the work manually. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) makes data gathering much easier, ensuring companies stay in compliance with regulatory standards.
  • Visualization of Network Data: High-level tools offer control rooms and graphical views of the traffic. This allows network administrators to visually identify patterns, vulnerabilities, and outliers in order to make improved decisions.
  • Reporting Security Incidents: When breaches occur, NTA logs provide a detailed view of network activity before, during, and after the incident. This helps organizations demonstrate compliance during audits and understand the root cause of the attack.
See Why Network Detection & Response (NDR) Maximizes Security
  • Prevention through granular detection
  • Automate investigation for faster responses
  • Incident analysis for effective threat correlation
  • Retrospective analysis for complete visibility
Download the Whitepaper Now!

How Network Traffic Analysis Works?

1. Capturing Traffic on the Network

The first step in monitoring optimal network performance and availability in NTA is to capture data as it moves through the network using a network traffic analysis tool. Tools such as Wireshark, SolarWinds, and Splunk analyze network packets in real-time. These tools capture:

  • Source and Destination IPs: Where the data originates and where it's headed.
  • Packet Size: Small packets may indicate standard communication, while oversized packets can be signs of suspicious activity like data exfiltration.
  • Traffic Volume: Monitoring the volume of data that is passing through specific network segments.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) tools capture data as it moves through the network to monitor performance and availability. 

The captured packets are then stored in a database to be further analyzed, and this enables administrators to analyze encrypted traffic, view historical data on traffic patterns and diagnose problems.

2. Analyzing Traffic Patterns

After historical network traffic data has been captured, it is analyzed through various network traffic analysis tools and processes for patterns and anomalies. This step often includes machine learning in network traffic analysis, which enables systems to:

  • Detect Anomalies: Algorithms detect anomalies in normal behavior. For instance, if a server normally communicates with 10 IPs daily but suddenly connects to 1,000 unknown addresses, it may be compromised.
  • Detect Malware: Machine learning models trained on known attack vectors can flag suspicious packet sequences indicative of malware.
  • Identify Unauthorized Access: Sudden attempts to access restricted areas of the network are flagged for investigation.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) tools and processes help in detecting anomalies and identifying potential threats. 

3. Identifying Threats

Advanced network threat detection and analytics help organizations pinpoint and address vulnerabilities:

  • Detect Ransomware: Anomalies like encrypted data uploads to unfamiliar servers often signal ransomware attacks.
  • Block Phishing Attempts: Tools analyze URL requests and email traffic to detect phishing.
  • Prevent Data Breaches: Monitoring unusual data flows can identify breaches early, minimizing damage.

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) tools provide advanced threat detection and analytics to pinpoint and address vulnerabilities.

Benefits of Network Traffic Analysis

1. Strengthened Security

  • Early Detection: NDR uses Network traffic analysis capability in the early identification of threats, reducing the risk of a major breach. For example, the identification of anomalous traffic from an internal device may prevent insider attacks. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) helps in the early detection of threats and preventing malicious activities.
  • Malicious Activities: Thorough information about malicious network traffic analysis enables organizations to prevent unauthorized activities immediately.

2. Enhanced Network Operations

  • Resource Optimization: Network infrastructure visibility helps organizations to deploy bandwidth and processing power at those places where they are required most. NDR leverages the Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) capability to help in resource optimization and reducing network downtime.
  • Reduced Downtime: Real-time monitoring and proactive troubleshooting prevent network disruptions, maximizing productivity.

3. Cost Efficiency

  • Prevention of Downtime: This is achieved by detecting the problem before it causes operational disruption. For instance, solving a bottleneck in time can save servers from crashing when the organization is experiencing its peak hours. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) helps in preventing downtime and speeding up recovery from incidents.
  • Recovery from an Incident: Speedy detection and solution reduces the monetary and reputational loss that results from a security breach.

Common Challenges in Network traffic Behavior Analysis

  • Managing the Amount of Data

    Modern networks produce huge volumes of traffic. Good tools will employ filtering and prioritization techniques to deal with that kind of volume so the most important information will show itself to the administrators and will not overwhelm them. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) helps in managing data volume, detecting sophisticated threats, and balancing privacy concerns.

  • Detection of Sophisticated Threats

    Sophisticated threats may often mimic legitimate activity. For example, attackers may imitate good user behavior in an effort to avoid detection. Machine learning-based network traffic analysis tools are better placed to detect these subtle patterns.

  • Balancing Privacy Concerns

    Monitoring traffic must be balanced with user privacy. Organizations should implement clear policies to ensure compliance with data protection laws while maintaining robust network security.

Why Fidelis NDR Outshines Traffic Analysis in Network Security
  • Advanced Deep Session Inspection (DSI)
  • Real-time C2 & ransomware detection
  • Full payload inspection (compressed/obfuscated files)
  • Retrospective malware detection
Download the datasheet now!

How to Start Network Traffic Analysis?

Implementing network traffic analysis solutions is crucial for performance optimization and security. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) is crucial for performance optimization and security. But its implementation is a challenge. Businesses require monitoring systems that capture relevant data without impacting performance or speed. Here is a step-by-step guide to using network traffic analysis solutions to help you get started:

1. Assess Your Data Sources

Understand Data Flows: Identify the devices, applications, data centers and systems that transmit data within your entire network infrastructure. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) helps in understanding data flows within the network.

Key Components to Include:
  • Routers, servers, and switches.
  • Firewall appliances and proxy gateways.
  • User workstations, remote devices, and IoT devices.
  • On-site applications and cloud services.
Use Tools for Automation

Tools such as application and network discovery software can assist in network monitoring solution creating a dependency map of network devices and understanding network topography. 

Output
  • Updated map of critical data flows and list of device dependencies.

2. Determine how to collect network traffic

Agent-Based Collection: 

  • Deploy agents or small applications on devices to capture more detailed data. 
  • Pros: High granularity. 
  • Cons: Potential performance impact and storage demands. 

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) tools capture detailed data for analysis.

Agentless Collection : 

  • Pros: Very light and good for most uses. 
  • Cons: Less granularity than agent-based methods

Choose Based on Needs: Choose the method that suits your performance and detail requirements. 

3. Configure Context-Based Network Visibility

Configure Contextual Rules: This step aggregates raw traffic flow data along with contextual insights such as: 

  • Authentication requests by users. 
  • Application usage patterns. 
  • Threat intelligence data. 

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) aggregates raw traffic data with contextual insights. 

Integrated Solutions: Use solutions that combine full network visibility and performance monitoring with threat detection and response capabilities. 

Benefit: Issues can be more easily identified and security enhanced through situational awareness. 

4. Examine Network Restrictions

Know Limitations: 

  • Confirm whether encrypted traffic is visible and if key sharing is required. 
  • Determine if bandwidth or port restrictions exist. 

Compliance Address: 

  • Avoid unauthorized data collection to ensure compliance with privacy regulations, such as GDPR. 
  • Establish policies for protecting user and customer data. 
  • Assess Threats: Ensure network traffic monitoring and analysis tools to identify obfuscated traffic or suspicious activities. 
  • Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) ensures compliance with privacy regulations. 

5. Determine How to Store Tracking Data

Tracking Systems Separation: 

  • Monitor systems should be kept distinct from general network traffic. 
  • Collected data should be safe from external threats.

Determine a Storage Solution: 

  • Cloud-Based: Suitable for multi-cloud or single-cloud environments. 
  • On-Premises Hardware: Suitable for traditional office networks with minimal reliance on the cloud. 
  • Advantage: Reliable, secure storage of harvested traffic data. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) ensures reliable and secure storage of traffic data. 

6. Implement Traffic Analysis Tools

Choose User-Friendly Tools: 

  • Choose systems with visualization panels and report generation features. 
  • Choose solutions that automate routine tasks and provide actionable insights. 

Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) tools simplify data interpretation and streamline network monitoring

Essential Features: 

  • Application and user-level analysis. 
  • Outcome: Simplified data interpretation and streamlined network monitoring. 

7. Test Network Traffic Analytics Before Going Live

Start Small:

  • Monitor a small group of data sources initially.
  • Focus on a single server or cloud application.

Gradual Expansion: Scale up once initial tests confirm functionality and effectiveness. Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) ensures functionality and effectiveness before full deployment. 

Prevent Rushed Deployments: This will help in long-term coverage and the collection of correct data without wastage of resources. 

Choosing the Right Network Traffic Analysis Tools

Selecting the right network traffic analysis tools is pivotal for effective network management and security. With a plethora of options available, it can be daunting to pinpoint the best tool for your organization. Here are some key factors to consider: 

  1. Comprehensive Visibility: Choose a network traffic analysis tool that offers extensive visibility across your entire network, including cloud environments, remote connections, and IoT devices. This ensures no blind spots in your network traffic monitoring.
  2. Advanced Analytics: Choose a tool equipped with advanced analytics capabilities. This will help in detecting sophisticated cyber threats and provide deep insights into network traffic patterns and user behaviors, enhancing your overall network security.
  3. Ease of Use: A user-friendly interface is crucial. Select a network traffic analysis tool that is easy to navigate and provides clear, concise reports and alerts. This will streamline the process of analyzing network traffic data.
  4. Scalability and Performance: Ensure the tool can scale with your growing network and handle increasing volumes of network traffic without compromising performance or accuracy. This is essential for maintaining optimal network performance.
  5. Compliance: Consider a tool that offers detailed reporting capabilities to meet compliance requirements. Look for customizable reporting templates that can be tailored to specific regulatory standards.
  6. Integration: Look for a network traffic analysis tool that integrates seamlessly with your existing security tools. This will enable automated threat detection and response, enhancing your security team’s efficiency.
  7. Support: Evaluate the vendor’s track record and support offerings. Regular software updates and responsive support are critical for maintaining the effectiveness of your network traffic analysis solution.

By considering these factors, you can choose a network traffic analysis tool that not only meets your current needs but also adapts to future challenges.

Best Practices for Network Traffic Analysis Deployment

Deploying network traffic analysis tools effectively requires meticulous planning and execution. Here are some best practices to ensure successful implementation: 

  1. Define Clear Objectives and Policies: Establish clear objectives for implementing network traffic analysis. Develop policies and procedures that clearly define roles and responsibilities within your security team. This sets a solid foundation for effective network traffic analysis processes.
  2. Deploy Sensors Strategically: Place network traffic analysis sensors at critical points in the network. This ensures comprehensive visibility and accurate analysis of network traffic data, helping to monitor network traffic effectively.
  3. Integrate with Other Security Tools: Integrate your network traffic analysis tool with existing security tools. This integration enhances threat detection and incident response capabilities, providing a more robust security posture.
  4. Regularly Review and Optimize: Continuously review and optimize the tool’s configurations, rules, and policies. This ensures accurate analysis and effective threat detection, adapting to evolving network traffic patterns.
  5. Train and Educate Staff: Provide regular training and education for your IT and security teams on the tool’s capabilities and incident response procedures. This ensures your team is well-prepared to handle any network security challenges.
  6. Monitor and Analyze Network Traffic: Continuously monitor and analyze network traffic to identify potential security threats and performance issues. This proactive approach helps in maintaining network availability and performance.
  7. Implement Incident Response Procedures: Develop and implement incident response procedures. This ensures prompt and effective response to security threats and performance issues, minimizing potential damage.

By following these best practices, you can ensure that your network traffic analysis deployment is both effective and efficient, providing enhanced security and performance for your network. 

Are you ready to lock down and optimize your network like never before? Fidelis Security has cutting-edge security solutions used in traffic analysis for network security teams. Whether it is detecting anomalies, identifying threats, or improving performance, our tools give your organization the complete visibility and protection needed.

Contact Fidelis today to learn how we can help you stay one step ahead in the ever-evolving landscape of network security.

Frequently Ask Questions

What does NTA stand for?

NTA stands for Network Traffic Analysis, a method to monitor and analyze data flows within a network.

How does network traffic analysis enhance security?

By detecting anomalies, identifying threats, and analyzing malicious activities, NTA strengthens overall network security.

How does Fidelis Network Detection and Response use Machine Learning for Network Traffic Analysis?

Fidelis NDR uses both supervised and unsupervised machine learning to analyze real-time and historical network traffic. It identifies patterns, detects anomalies, and sends actionable alerts for potential threats, enhancing the security of both internal and external network traffic.

About Author

Picture of Srestha Roy
Srestha Roy

Srestha is a cybersecurity expert and passionate writer with a keen eye for detail and a knack for simplifying intricate concepts. She crafts engaging content and her ability to bridge the gap between technical expertise and accessible language makes her a valuable asset in the cybersecurity community. Srestha's dedication to staying informed about the latest trends and innovations ensures that her writing is always current and relevant.

Related Readings

One Platform for All Adversaries

See Fidelis in action. Learn how our fast and scalable platforms provide full visibility, deep insights, and rapid response to help security teams across the World protect, detect, respond, and neutralize advanced cyber adversaries.

Get a Demo