Analyzing Network Traffic is key to streamline the workflow of businesses

Monitoring network communications for unusual activity enables the timely detection of cybersecurity threats. Network traffic analysis focuses on overall traffic observation rather than monitoring specific parts of the network or assets connected to the network.

Traditional network traffic analysis works by defining a baseline for ‘normal’ network operations. This information is then used to alert users about anomalies such as connections from a foreign country or an unrecognized device type. However, such an approach could lead to too much complication, especially in the current complex network environment.

In current days, networks are often the backbone of businesses, and so when they don’t perform to the best of their capabilities, a business may suffer from loss. As a network administrator, this is certainly something one should avoid.

For a company hit with a cyber attack, the final cost can be astronomical as it includes investigation and mitigation costs, costs tied to legal exposure, insurance hikes, the acquisition of new tools, the implementation of new policies and procedures, and the hit to revenues and reputation; therefore, the best ways to avoid business-impacting issues is to see them coming and fix them before they have a chance to have a devastating impact on the business.

In this post-pandemic era business IT is constantly evolving to keep up with a dynamic, more remote work environment, which has created even more challenging for the network administrators to ensure uninterrupted access to the network; therefore, cutting-edge Network Traffic Analysis solutions are built to operate intelligently by accounting for past trends and entity behavior.

The Network Traffic Analyzer (NTA) module of the blësk network monitoring tool, captures the continuous flow of network traffic and presents the data in graphs and tables.

These can provide valuable information on how your network is being used overall and at the individual level as well. It is a simple, portable traffic measurement and monitoring tool, which supports various management activities, including network optimization & planning, and detection of network security violations.

blësk NTA helps the network administrators keep a close eye on network perimeter. Even with strong firewalls in place, mistakes can happen, and unwanted traffic could get through. Users could also leverage methods such as tunneling, external anonymizers, and VPNs to get around firewall rules.

NTA provides the ability to identify those situations where network traffic does not comply with specified policies, or when it exceeds defined thresholds. This will help you in detecting network configuration problems including:

• Misconfiguration of software applications (by analyzing protocol traffic data)
• Identification of hosts that use unnecessary protocols.
• Excessive network bandwidth utilization

blësk NTA discovers the application protocols (Facebook, YouTube, BitTorrent, etc.) using the nDPI approach, a deep packet inspection technology. It characterizes HTTP traffic by relying, among other things, on the characterization services provided by search engines.

It provides detailed information about network traffic, including traffic volume, key speakers, bandwidth consumption, and high usage times.

blësk NTA is compatible with all data capture approaches necessary for the functionality of this type of software. It can use flow data statistics generated by routers, switches, specialized standalone hardware probes, or mirror port configuration on switches.

Briefly blësk NTA is an essential way to monitor network availability and activity to identify anomalies, maximize performance, and keep an eye out for attacks.

We understand that some organizations may not have the inhouse capacity to facilitate many essential tasks; therefore, blësk offers managed services to the low resourced companies to monitor their network services.

Download a free trial of blësk on https://www.blesk.ca/essai-gratuit/