At least two or three times each week we’re asked how NetFlow relates to PCI compliance. Our answer is crisp and simple. No fancy requirement references or complicated legal speak, just practical advice that’s actually useful for those concerned with the PCI audit process. There are three key areas NetFlow and IPFIX analysis can aid the enterprise as it relates to PCI:

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Since 2005, Plixer and Cisco have been touting NetFlow (not Net Flow) as an IT Security and threat detection solution. Cisco calls NetFlow the “primary network anomaly-detection technology” (pp4) and that “NetFlow allows the user to identify anomalies by producing detailed accounting of traffic flows”.  We are not the only ones with this belief. Even Symantec calls NetFlow a “valuable enhancement” to IDS (intrusion detection) and IPS (intrusion prevention). Read more »

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I came across this article in infosecisland.com on Securing PCs posted by Michelle Drolet who is the founder and CEO of Towerwall. In the post, she noted several interesting vulnerability facts that most businesses need to be aware of. Right off the top, I found these to be shocking:

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There are many uses of NetFlow but one of the most important and often overlooked is the network security value NetFlow and IPFIX can provide. Based on feedback gathered over 10 years from hundreds of NetFlow customers, here’s the top five uses of NetFlow analysis for network security in ascending order…
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Most companies agree that business Internet security systems are a paramount concern.  Relying on traditional security efforts such as firewalls and antivirus software are not going to perform a very important emerging security detection technique called network behavior analysis.  To leverage this internal security measure, network administrators need to collect and analyze NetFlow or IPFIX from existing routers and switches.  And here’s some good news: firmware upgrades are usually not needed to take advantage of flow technology.

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IT Security : NetFlow, the proposed standard for network traffic analysis (when SNMP & Port Utilization just won’t cut it), has made leaps and bounds in Internet Security during the past few years. In part one of a two part series, I’d like to demonstrate Read more »

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First of all, Net Flow  is spelled NetFlow, and today, we’re going to talk about an IT Monitoring Service that provides Network Traffic Monitoring.  Specifically, we want to monitor BYOD Traffic.  The modern workplace is often being assaulted by these devices.  Why? Androids and iPhones are constantly searching for a Network to connect to.  Once attached, some employees are so ‘connected’ with friends that these smart phones start flooding the network and pestering the user to participate in Facebook, Farmville or even Scrabble.  How can you find out when, what and where they are doing?

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Not long ago, Rich Tehrani from TMCnet sat down to interview our very own Product Manager Michael Patterson to talk NetFlow, IPFIX and the recent influx of mobile devices on corporate networks around the world. Mike is a technology entrepreneur who has spent the last 15 years chasing his passion of designing and implementing high value products that help manage networks, large and small. His projects include Read more »

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I have had many customers ask me, “What are the algorithms in Flow Analytics and what do they do?” Excellent question. That is exactly what I will be covering in this second installment of my extensive series on Flow Analytics. In part one I covered how to enable Flow Analytics and properly configure it to your liking.

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What is Flow Analytics™ ?

Flow Analytics™ is a built-in module that a NetFlow analyzing tool uses to perform network behavior analysis. Flow Analytics™ can trigger alarms for such behaviors as worms, network scanning, and known compromised internet hosts. It can alarm you if any DoS attacks are happening. Once that happens it can identify repeat offenders and create a Unique Identifier (UI) to manage traffic counts. Flow Analytics™ can also identify your top applications, conversations, protocols, etc across dozens of routers and switches.

Flow Analytics™ allows you to store data for more than 24 hours. You can choose to save an infinite amount of Net Flow data history at every interval. So now you can go back and identify a problem that occurred 2 weeks ago on your network. Flow Analytics™ also allows for automated DNS resolution to help you quickly identify culprits on your network.

What makes Flow Analytics™ incredibly amazing is the ability to look at the NetFlow from multiple routers and switches simultaneously every 5 minutes. Potentially, you can configure hundreds of devices for each algorithm in Flow Analytics™. In this blog I will show you how to set up Flow Analytics™ and how to start configuring it. Read more »

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