Scrutinizer v7.3 – Flow Analytics – Top Flows
Posted in Scrutinizer on December 14th, 2009 by scottrA couple of weeks ago I began a series of blogs that introduced you to the new Flow Analytic tools that are available with Plixer International’s latest NetFlow and sFlow analysis tool, Scrutinizer v7.3.
Today I will be introducing you to the fourth of the new analytic tools now available with Scrutinizer v7.3. The Top Flows algorithm utilizes Flow Analytics – Top Flows, and checks to see if hosts involved with large numbers of flows have a large percentage of flows that are incomplete. This is determined by looking at the TCP flags field in each flow record.
If it is a TCP flow record and it does not have the FIN flag set, it could indicate a host that is not able to make a full connection to the host it is trying to reach. This is typical for things like port scans and even P2P applications. Another possibility is that a host just has a misconfigured application that needs to be addressed.

Today I will be introducing you to the third of the four new analytic tools now available with Scrutinizer v7.3. The Breach Attempt Violation looks for many small flows from one source to one destination. This can indicate things such as a “brute force” or “dictionary” attack.