Network Traffic Analysis: A Powerful Tool for Security and Performance

As many computer security breaches as possible occur every day around the world. Many of them are viewed as serious, or even catastrophic, with significant losses of data or financial resources. However, some are viewed as trivial.

Hackers are constantly seeking new weaknesses to take advantage of. Information about businesses, people, and even governments is vulnerable to exposure or use against us when networks are not secure.

Analyzing traffic on the workplace network while keeping an eye on the network is one approach to keeping these adversaries at bay. Cybersecurity teams can identify unusual or suspect activity through such monitoring and analysis and take quick action to safeguard the network and organization. Network traffic analysis (NTA) enters the picture at this point. An application called Network Traffic Analyzer may track and examine network traffic. It can divide the bandwidth according to users, applications, or IP addresses.

You can use the tool to visualize the data flows using tables or diagrams. The Network Traffic Analyzer will assist you in locating the issue in your IT environment and solving it. Network traffic analyzers are becoming more and more necessary. Markets and Markets estimates that the size of the world market for network traffic analyzers was USD 1.9 billion in 2019. It will increase at a 10.6% CAGR between 2019 and 2024. By 2024, it is projected to increase to USD 3.2 billion.

You can discover the answers to many questions you have concerning the Network Traffic Analyzer in this article.

• What is Network Traffic Analysis?

• Why is it important for network security?

• What are the common use cases for Network Traffic Analysis?

• What are the benefits of Network Traffic Analysis?

• What are the challenges of Network Traffic Analysis?

• What are the different types of Network Traffic Analysis?

• How do you perform Network Traffic Analysis?

• What are the Network Traffic Analyzer tools used for Network Traffic Analysis?

• What are the best practices for Network Traffic Analysis?

What is Network Traffic Analysis?

Network traffic analysis is an application that involves intercepting, recording, and examining communication patterns in network traffic in order to find and mitigate security issues. Network traffic analysis (NTA), a method for identifying anomalies, including security and operational issues, tracks network activity and availability. Network traffic analysis might potentially reveal performance issues. Network traffic analyzers help simplify, streamline, and improve the process of network traffic analysis.

A significant technique utilized by a wide range of professionals in numerous industries is network analysis. Network analysis is used by several significant groups, including:

• Network administrators: These experts monitor network traffic, spot performance problems, and troubleshoot network issues using network analysis.
• Security experts: By identifying security threats and vulnerabilities, network analysis enables security experts to thwart and lessen attacks.
• Researchers: To examine social networks, communication patterns, and other forms of networks, social scientists and other researchers employ network analysis.
• Business analysts: Supply chains, consumer behavior, and other sorts of networks that have an impact on business operations are studied using network analysis.
• Health practitioners: Healthcare professionals can utilize network analysis to follow patient outcomes, identify important participants in medical networks, and analyze the transmission of illnesses.

Identifying bandwidth hogs (at the user, application, and device levels), keeping track of client-to-server network traffic, and debugging network and application performance issues are all made easier with the aid of network traffic analysis tools.

To stay undetected, cybercriminals continuously change their strategies. It is challenging for organizations to recognize important security concerns because they frequently use trusted tools that have already been deployed in a network environment and authentic credentials. Network traffic analysis tools were created to counter the ongoing innovation in cybercrime, and they assist in doing this by providing businesses with a practical means of foiling the schemes of even the most inventive hackers.

A major problem for corporations now is obtaining constant and complete visibility of their expanding networks. Fortunately, network traffic analyzers can be trusted sources of knowledge and insight, assisting organizations in understanding what is on their networks. This is because networks offer an impartial viewpoint that is frequently difficult to find in other data sources.

Why is NTA Important for Network Security?

Network traffic analysis is essential for monitoring network availability and activity in order to detect anomalies, optimize performance, and prevent attacks. Because assailants frequently employ trusted technologies already implemented in a network environment and swiftly alter their methods to evade detection, it is difficult for organizations to proactively identify severe network security issues.

In response to the constant ingenuity of assailants, network traffic monitoring technologies have emerged, providing organizations with a practical means of thwarting inventive attackers.

Moreover, the increasing adoption of cloud computing, DevOps practices, and the Internet of Things has made maintaining network visibility a difficult and time-consuming task.

Because they can ascertain what is genuinely on the network, NTA products can serve as a single source of truth for an organization. Networks observe everything and provide objective facts that other data sources often have difficulty obtaining. Consequently, there are numerous reasons to invest in superior network traffic analysis tools:

• Better Network Performance: Network traffic analysis enables businesses to determine where network traffic may surge, allowing them to adapt and increase efficiency to avoid bottlenecks. This also contributes to effective resource management, reducing IT costs.
• Rapid Response: Identifying hazards rapidly reduces server damage. With a sophisticated network traffic analysis tool, the time required to identify and mitigate these threats is drastically reduced, ensuring that minimal damage occurs.
• Increased Cyber Attacks: The rise in ransomware and malware attacks has prompted criminals to target business infrastructure in the hopes of receiving higher ransoms in exchange for the decryption of client-sensitive data. This trend could be mitigated by network analysis, which provides automatic anomaly detection and prevents intrusions before they occur.
• Advanced Public Security Reputation: A company that uses effective network traffic analysis tools presents itself to the public as more trustworthy and committed to providing more efficient services; this attracts potential clients and deters hackers who may attempt to infiltrate your business.
• Resource Efficiency: It is impracticable for the vast majority of a company's personnel to conduct continuous active monitoring of network traffic. This process is automated to provide businesses with a consistent level of sophisticated analysis while reducing labor and administrative costs.

Once it has been determined that your company requires a superior network traffic analysis instrument, the next step is to determine what to search for when attempting to locate the one that best meets your requirements.//

What are the Common Use Cases for Network Traffic Analysis?

Network traffic analysis (NTA) monitors network activity and availability to detect anomalies. These anomalies are security and operational issues. NTA's typical use cases are as follows:

• Gathering both a current and past record of activity on your network

• Identifying malicious software like ransomware activities

• Identifying the use of ciphers and protocols that are weak

• Fixing network slowness

• Internal visibility improvement and blind area removal

• Gaining the knowledge you need to optimize network performance, reduce your attack surface, boost security, and better manage your resources by implementing a solution that can continually monitor network traffic

• Network bandwidth peaks are highlighted by NTA, which also identifies their origin.

• Real-time dashboards that focus on user and network behavior

• Creating network activity reports for any time period for management and auditors

• Monitoring of online activity and data espionage

• Examining file access on file servers and access to MSSQL databases.

What are the Benefits of Network Traffic Analysis?

Network managers can watch utilization on WAN lines, identify suspicious malware, and keep an eye out for other security events by using packet data retrieved from network packets. By converting the unreadable raw metadata into a readable format and allowing network and security managers to drill down to the smallest detail, deep packet inspection (DPI) solutions offer complete network visibility.

Additionally, NTA gives businesses the opportunity to more efficiently analyze network data and spot irregularities that can be signs of cyberattacks or other possible problems. An organization can gain from these competencies in a variety of ways, including the following:

• Network traffic analysis provides better visibility into the users and IoT devices connecting to your network.
• Network traffic analysis complies with all regulations.
• Network traffic analysis is used to troubleshoot security and operational problems.
• Analysis of network traffic faster investigation resolution with more network context and detailed detail
• Tools for network traffic analysis can gather data automatically, present it in a visual way, send alarms, offer reports, and correlate data from different networks.
• By identifying irregularities in network behavior, the technique offers network security. You can utilize traffic reports to verify your usage, which can assist you with billing.
• Network performance is improved and troubleshooted via network traffic analysis.
• Analysis of network traffic finds malware, a weak protocol, or any other threat or weakness on the network.
• Reduce the hazards that Shadow IT poses by accurately inventorying the network's hardware and services.
• Improved network resource management
• Satisfy the applicable data privacy compliance standards
• For senior management or auditors, create reports on network and user behavior.
• To comprehend how a threat has spread throughout the network and which devices it has infected, carry out a thorough and contextual forensic investigation.
• In the end, NTA systems enable security personnel to improve corporate cyber defenses and reduce the attack surface.

What are the Challenges of Network Traffic Analysis?

The difficulties and restrictions Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) encounters have an impact on its productivity and efficacy. Below, we'll go over some of the key points that NTA practitioners should keep in mind while using this approach to ensure the security of infrastructure:

• Data complexity and volume: Dealing with the vast and intricate amount of data that needs to be gathered and processed is one of NTA's main challenges. Terabytes or even petabytes of storage and computational power may be needed for NTA, depending on the network's size and architecture. Additionally, the data may have different formats, protocols, and levels of encryption and may come from many sources, including routers, switches, firewalls, or terminals. This makes it challenging to accurately and quickly correlate and interpret the data.
• Compliance and data privacy: Keeping the data that is collected and processed private and compliant is another difficulty for NTA. NTA may entail sensitive or personal information, such as IP addresses, user identities, or email messages, depending on the nature and content of the data. This might give rise to ethical and legal questions, particularly if the data spans organizational or national lines. In order to protect the data from unauthorized access or misuse, NTA practitioners must adhere to the pertinent laws and policies, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and put in place the necessary safeguards, like anonymization, encryption, or consent.
• Validity and quality of data: Assuring the legitimacy and quality of the data that is gathered and evaluated is a third difficulty faced by NTA. Due to numerous causes, including network congestion, packet loss, or configuration mistakes, the data may be insufficient, erroneous, or out-of-date. In addition, hostile actors, like hackers or insiders, may modify or spoof the data in order to avoid detection or raise false alarms. In order to filter out the noise and unimportant data, NTA practitioners must verify and validate the data using methods like checksums, signatures, or timestamps, as well as sampling, aggregation, or compression.
• Analysis and interpretation of data: Making sense of and acting on the data after analysis and interpretation is NTA's ultimate difficulty. Particularly if it involves numerous layers, protocols, or devices, the data may be too complicated or ambiguous to comprehend. Additionally, the data can simply show the symptoms or effects of the abnormality rather than its underlying cause or influence. In order to recognize and categorize the anomalies, NTA practitioners must employ cutting-edge techniques like machine learning, artificial intelligence, or behavioral analysis. They must then use visualization, reporting, or alerting technologies to share their results and prompt action.

What are the Different Types of Network Traffic Analysis and How to Select NTA Tool?

There are various types of network traffic monitoring tools. Deep packet inspection (DPI) tools and flow-based tools are the two main categories that they fall under. You can choose from alternatives for software agents, archiving past data, and intrusion detection systems in these tools. Take into account the following five factors when determining which NTA solution is best for your business:

• Availability of flow-enabled devices: Does your network have flow-enabled devices that can produce the flows needed by an NTA solution that only takes flows, such as Cisco Netflow? DPI tools are vendor independent and accept raw traffic, which may be found on every network via any controlled switch. All that is needed for network switches and routers is traffic from a SPAN or port mirror on any managed switch.
• Data source: Not all NTA tools gather both flow and packet data since they originate from various sources. Make sure to examine your network traffic and identify the essential components, after which you should compare tool capabilities to make sure everything you require is covered.
• Network's nodes' points: Take into account whether the tool utilizes agent-based or agent-free software. Additionally, exercise caution while monitoring too many data sources at first. Instead, choose places where data converges with care, such as internet gateways or VLANs connected to crucial servers.
• Data in real-time against data in the past: Analysis of past occurrences requires historical data; however, certain techniques for observing network traffic lose that data over time. Additionally, see if the tool's cost is determined by the volume of data you intend to store. To identify the solution that best suits your demands and budget, have a clear grasp of the data that matters to you the most.
• Full packet capture, expense, and complexity: Some DPI technologies record and keep every packet, requiring expensive appliances, more money spent on storage and a lot of training and experience to use. Others perform more of the "heavy lifting", capturing complete packets but simply removing the pertinent information and metadata for each protocol. Although there is a significant reduction in data as a result of metadata extraction, the material is still accessible and useful, making it perfect for network and security teams.

How Do You Perform Network Traffic Analysis?

It can be difficult to analyze the traffic on your network. It involves collecting, archiving, and tracking every piece of data traversing your on-premises, hybrid, or multi-cloud infrastructure. There is no strategy that is universally effective across all networks and setups. It's more crucial to learn how to analyze network traffic in the first place than to talk about what to search for in an analysis tool. From there, you can select a tool based on the characteristics of your network.

Let's break down the network traffic analysis steps you need to take so you can feel better about the situation:

1. Determine Your Data Sources: Finding out what's available on your network is the first step. If you don't know something is there, you can't examine it or keep an eye on it. This stage consists of two components.

   • Find all about Data Source Types: You must recognize and classify the many sources from which you can gather data. Applications, PCs, servers, routers, switches, firewalls, and other devices are available. Each of them can offer different metrics that you can gather and analyze.
   • Choose your identification techniques: Appropriate techniques to use need to be decided later because you must define your data sources. Both human and automatic methods are acceptable. They quickly become out of date when searching topology maps and other documents, but that's part of the manual technique. This is why you take into account the automated processes of application and network discovery. Using SNMP, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), flow-based protocols, and transaction tracing are a few common auto-discovery techniques. You may discover application and network dependencies and increase infrastructure visibility by taking this action now.

2. Select the Most Effective Method for Gathering Data from Sources: The next step is to determine the most effective method for gathering the data you require from your data sources. The two main methods for gathering network traffic information are with and without agents.

   • Using Agents to Collect: In order to collect data via an agent, you must install software on your data sources. Agents can gather data regarding active software activities, the efficiency of system resources, and inbound/outbound network traffic. Agent-based data collection can produce extremely detailed data, but it can also cause processing and storage problems.
   • Collection without Agents: Utilizing protocols, processes, or APIs that your data sources already support is a requirement for data collection without agents. Methods like SNMP on network devices and WMI on Windows servers fall under the category of agentless collection. Flow-based protocols and firewalls with Syslog enabled both to aid in the identification of security events and traffic flows, respectively. Although agentless collection doesn't always yield data that is as detailed as agent collection, it nevertheless provides you with the user and system information you need to effectively evaluate network traffic.

3. Ascertain Any Collection Restrictions: It's tempting to jump right in once you are familiar with your data sources and the most effective technique to gather network traffic statistics from them. However, your company probably has guidelines and limitations about what and how infrastructure is maintained. Your ability to evaluate network traffic will suffer if you do not predetermine any of these needs.

   Therefore, be sure to ascertain whether any ports need to be opened, say, for data collection. Additionally, make sure to ascertain whether departmental approval is necessary before data collection can start. Gathering information from various areas of the network can assist you in destroying silos.

   Additionally, consider the sector that your company operates in. In highly regulated sectors like healthcare or finance, you might not be able to gather some types of data or you might need to store the data for a longer time. For network traffic analysis, more historical data can be useful, but it takes up storage. So be mindful of any regulations limiting or directing the collection of data.

4. Begin a Limited and Wide-Ranging Data Collection: The following action is to make your data sources collectible. Starting small and using a variety of data sources is crucial in this situation, especially if you manage a large network. This will make it easier to spot any system problems before you extend your network's reach. Gathering data from each Windows server should be the last thing you want to do; for example, discover that a certain cluster of servers is crashing all the time. As a result, start small with a diverse group and then grow from where you are.

5. Select the Location for Data Collection: All of the data you are gathering needs a destination. It is possible to store network traffic using specialized hardware or virtual appliances. Another choice is to install monitoring software on your actual or virtual devices.

   Take your network's size and complexity into account. Virtual appliances might be more appropriate, for instance, if significant portions contain virtual devices. A hardware device can be a preferable choice if your company still primarily relies on on-premises physical infrastructure. A busy virtual network inside that network should not be monitored by a virtual appliance.

   How you can evaluate network traffic depends on the target appliance. For example, it is more difficult to analyze data on a device that does not support viewing through a web UI. If you have a software component, your life will be easier. It will make it easier for you to collect and evaluate Data.

6. Turn on Ongoing Monitoring: Network traffic analysis is typically a continuous process. Sometimes you have to investigate a specific issue, such as an unexpected security breach or a sudden link failure. You might be required to assist in the analysis of network traffic from a portion of the network that, despite all the aforementioned efforts, is inaccessible or has monitoring restrictions. In these situations, you might need to gather and examine traffic once or for a set amount of time.

   However, you must regularly monitor and gather data from your infrastructure in order to adequately analyze network traffic. Real-time and historical traffic collection require constant monitoring. Therefore, whichever solution you choose in the previous stage to serve as the network traffic destination must have continuous monitoring enabled.

7. Browse and Filter the Gathered Data: It requires sorting through gigabytes or more of data to analyze network traffic. All you have to do is observe, research, and interpret. You might be a terminal whiz who can grep your way through it to locate what you need, and you might believe that text files kept on your server or that appliance are okay. The ability to group network data into categories like application, byte size, protocol, IP subnet, etc. is necessary for traffic analysis. Using the command line to accomplish it is difficult.

   In order to view all the collected data, you must make sure that you have a monitoring system in place. The time it takes to diagnose an application issue can be significantly decreased by being able to visualize network traffic via dashboards and reports. You can use this to find out who the most popular talkers are on your network and what they're going through. You can use it to locate the most popular programs and any problems they may be experiencing. This process might also help you identify low-bandwidth network connections that you can get rid of to reduce your expenses.

8. Configure Alerts: Making sure you are informed when there is a problem is the final stage. You cannot spend the entire day staring at dashboards and reports on your computer. Therefore, you must set up your monitoring system to provide you with an alarm when something goes wrong. Email is frequently used to send alerts, but you can also use connectors provided by monitoring solutions like Netreo to send alerts to yourself and your team. To prevent alert fatigue, any monitoring technology you employ must provide the appropriate notifications.

   Don't forget to establish your own thresholds, too. You should be able to spot anomalies with the correct monitoring technology, but you are the expert on your network. You should set alert levels for your firewalls if you are aware that some ports are not permitted across them. Even if the instrument is brand-new, it can still help you spot problems and lead to further investigation.

   

   Figure 1. Network Traffic Analysis Steps

What are the Network Traffic Analyzer tools used for Network Traffic Analysis?

Based on this evaluation of well-known network analysis tools, pick the best one to study traffic at your house or place of business. Our top suggested network traffic analyzers include Wireshark and SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, which are explained below:

1. Wireshark: A network protocol analyzer called Wireshark will provide you with comprehensive information about what is occurring on your network. Wireshark has become the de facto industry standard thanks to the efforts of numerous for-profit and nonprofit businesses, governmental organizations, and educational institutions. It thoroughly examines hundreds of protocols. It has live capture and offline analysis capabilities. It works with OS X, Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and more.

2. SolarWinds Network Traffic Analysis: NetFlow Traffic Analyzer, a network traffic analysis solution, is offered by SolarWinds. It can accurately and thoroughly analyze network traffic. You can streamline network traffic analysis with the aid of its configurable reports and alarms. It can pinpoint the devices and software programs that are clogging up the network and producing a lot of traffic.

3. Auvik: A cloud-based network management and monitoring tool called Auvik has the ability to analyze network traffic intelligently. The network's users, their activities, and the direction of their traffic are all revealed by Auvik TrafficInsights. It provides information on the equipment consuming all the bandwidth.

4. ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer: A tool for real-time traffic analysis is ManageEngine. You will have access to information about network bandwidth usage. It conducted a thorough traffic analysis. To provide real-time visibility, it employs flow technology. It may gather, examine, and report on data on your network bandwidth. You can use it to optimize your broadband usage. You may monitor network anomalies that bypass your network firewall using ManageEngine NetFlow Analyzer. Context-sensitive anomalies are recognized. It may gather and examine flows from significant hardware manufactured by companies like Cisco, 3COM, Juniper, Foundry Networks, Hewlett-Packard, etc.

5. LANGuardian from NetFort: Deep packet inspection software called NetFort is used to track, examine, and report on a variety of infrastructure-related activities, such as those involving users, applications, and networks. This software analyzes passive network traffic and has no effect on the performance of the network. LANGuardian examines the headers and body of traffic packets and gives thorough and trustworthy information on the status of network and application traffic.

   Additionally, utilize Utilizing an open-source networking tool can enable your company to immediately detect network faults, avoid downtime, and avoid other problems that could harm your revenue and productivity. What platform for network monitoring should you then use? The best open-source utilities are listed here.

6. Graphite: An open-source FOSS utility called Graphite monitors time-series data, including network performance. The software then presents this information to users on a dashboard, greatly streamlining network management. Graphite, one of the most popular open-source tools for network monitoring, has a lot of drawbacks.

7. Prometheus: An open-source network monitoring tool called Prometheus notifies users of a variety of network-related problems, including memory usage, low latency, and cybercrime. Prometheus, which was created at SoundCloud, looks for metrics from network jobs and presents them in a simple dashboard for study.

8. Zabbix: Free network monitoring software called Zabbix examines various kinds of infrastructure, including networks. This platform is used by thousands of enterprises to gain performance insights regarding bandwidth, CPU, memory, and packet loss, as well as network mode and connections.

9. Core Nagios: One of the most well-liked open-source infrastructure monitoring programs, Nagios Core (formerly Nagios), has improved network, system, and server monitoring features. Nagios, which bills itself as the "industry standard in IT infrastructure monitoring", plans and automates monitoring activities to improve network performance.

10. Monitorix: For the Linux ecosystem, Monitorix is a network monitoring tool that displays network-related data as simple graphs for further study. Monitorix is a free tool with some restrictions, but it is good at spotting errors, slow responses, and network security problems.

What are the Best Practices for Network Traffic Analysis?

To ensure a seamless, long-term experience for all stakeholders, keep the following best practices in mind when implementing this solution for your business in accordance with your use case. Recommended techniques for Network Traffic Analysis are outlined below:

1. Understand your network: Being knowledgeable about your security apps, whether they analyze network traffic or not, is essential for this phase because this hardware and software control network traffic and defend the company against attacks. Know where each entity is on your network, what it does, and how it is configured.

2. Utilize several data sources: A more complete picture of network performance and security is provided by combining flow, packet, and log-based data sources.

3. Properly implement cybersecurity policies: Create thoughtful, pertinent security policies that outline the actions that are permitted on the corporate network. Think about allocating access rights based on team, rank, and requirements. Clarify the limitations and exclusions. Make sure the policies are rigorously implemented and enforced. Last but not least, bear in mind that policies that work for one company may not necessarily work for another.

4. Utilize both current and Past Data: Operators can identify trends, patterns, and abnormalities in network traffic by analyzing both historical and real-time data, which enables better decision-making.

5. Strive for full visibility that is context-driven: One of the main advantages of network traffic analysis is visibility. The network traffic analysis system should be set up to give the right context for the people on your network, the devices they use, where they access the network from, the kinds of data they send and receive, etc. Security teams can create and carry out effective risk management plans and keep track of anything from private networks to multi-cloud setups with the aid of context-driven visibility of the entire network.

6. Automatic Detection of Anomalies: Automated anomaly detection reduces the time and effort needed for manual analysis by assisting network operators in promptly identifying and responding to anomalous network activity.

7. Adopt Automation: You can automate processes for malicious intent identification with the use of cutting-edge network traffic analysis tools. As a result, fewer resources are needed to adequately preserve important corporate assets. Choose a network traffic analysis solution with rule-based detection capabilities so that your business can thwart particular attack methods, approaches, and procedures. These rules are typically simple to design, and they are automatically applied across pertinent criteria, including assets, times, and procedures.

8. Documentation procedures and results: Create a knowledge base for future use by documenting your network traffic analysis procedures and conclusions. This will make it simpler to spot patterns and trends.

9. Select a secure traffic analysis method: Today, almost all communications, whether business-related or not, are encrypted. Naturally, cybercriminals are also involved in this, and a lot of threats are sent across encrypted lines. Modern network traffic analysis techniques can check for hazards in encrypted data-in-motion. To analyze encrypted traffic without violating any relevant data privacy laws, choose a network traffic analysis system.

10. Connect to Other Tools: A more comprehensive understanding of your network environment may be obtained, and operations can be made more efficient by integrating network traffic analysis tools with other network management and security solutions.

    Make sure your network operations crew is properly trained in the use of tools and procedures for network traffic analysis. Regular training and information exchange can enhance the overall performance and security of a network.

11. Pay attention to additional security options: Although network traffic analysis is a powerful analytics and security solution, your firm will likely need other solutions as well. Make sure you have a robust, properly configured firewall to secure the perimeter of your network. Use a VPN to restrict access to your workplace intranet to those who need it.

    To prepare for ransomware and other severe system outages, keep consistent backups and other redundancy mechanisms in place. Use the appropriate protocols to encrypt all communications. If in doubt, think about working with an outside cybersecurity professional to make sure your security posture is strengthened and all regulatory standards are being met.

12. Set Baselines: Operators can more quickly spot abnormalities and potential problems by setting baseline metrics for typical network activity.

13. Make use of the best sensor positioning: Sensors track network activity and assist network traffic analysis in producing reports. Place your sensors throughout your network, not just at the edge. This will only report on communications that enter and leave your network, giving you a limited amount of insight. Choose sensors for both intra-network sites and business units. This will allow the network traffic analysis solution to gather more information and produce valuable insights.

14. Continuously evaluate and improve: Your network will stay secure and optimal if network traffic analysis procedures and technologies are regularly reviewed and updated.

15. Don't cut corners with threat detection: There may be setups available from some network traffic analysis suppliers that solely pay attention to the analytics side of things. Make sure you choose a solution that can quickly and accurately identify threats to your network unless your organization does not require network traffic analysis-based threat detection. Remember that network traffic monitoring tools can identify threats that may have gotten past the perimeter protection of your company or come from inside your network.

16. Put security first: Analysis of network traffic is essential for identifying and thwarting security threats. Put security measures first and keep an eye out for any indications of harmful behavior.

17. Encourage cooperation: Encourage communication between security, network operations, and other IT departments. A more effective and secure network environment can result from the sharing of best practices and insights.