How Does NTA Improve Your Security

What is Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)?

Network Traffic Analysis is about analyzing all the entities or devices that make up your network--whether they are managed or unmanaged. Here you collect or ingest all the telemetry and/or flow records (like NetFlow) from multiple network devices like routers, switches, and firewalls and determine what "normal" behavior for these devices looks like and how parts of your network are being accessed and by whom.

Everything touches the network, so this visibility extends all the way from headquarters to branch offices, data centers, roaming users, and smart devices. Whether you are on-premises, in the cloud, or some combination, NTA gives you much needed visibility and context into what is happening on your network.

How does NTA improve your security?

Once an NTA solution determines what normal behavior on your network looks like, it can alert your organization when anomalous behavior occurs. By alerting your security team to suspicious activity early on--whether the threat is coming from outside or inside your network--NTA solutions can provide the extended visibility you need to mitigate the security incident.

Network traffic analysis can attribute the malicious behavior to a specific IP and also perform forensic analysis to determine how the threat has moved laterally within the organization--and allow you to see what other devices might be infected. This leads to faster response in order to prevent any business impact.

Your network is a rich data source. Network traffic analysis (NTA) solutions use a combination of machine learning, behavioral modeling, and rule-based detection to spot anomalies or suspicious activities on the network.

DPI: The Power Behind NTA

NTA solutions are powered by passive, non-intrusive deep packet inspection (DPI) technology that can profile and classify network traffic even if it is encrypted.