Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) software is a crucial tool for network security and cybersecurity professionals. It works by monitoring and analyzing network traffic in real-time to detect and respond to suspicious activities and potential threats.
NTA software can identify patterns, anomalies, and trends in network traffic that may indicate malicious behavior, such as unauthorized access, data exfiltration, or malware infections.
These tools are essential because they provide visibility into network traffic, helping security professionals understand the normal behavior of their network and quickly identify deviations that could signal a security incident. By detecting threats early, NTA software enables security teams to respond promptly, mitigating potential damage and minimizing the impact on the organization.
Moreover, NTA software plays a crucial role in threat hunting and incident response, allowing security teams to investigate security incidents thoroughly and take appropriate actions to prevent future attacks. Overall, NTA software is a valuable asset for network security and cybersecurity professionals, helping them proactively protect their organizations’ networks and data from evolving cyber threats.
Network traffic analysis (NTA) software and network monitoring software both involve observing network activity, but they differ in focus and scope. Network traffic analysis (NTA) software typically delves deeper into packet-level details (such as encrypted traffic analysis, communication protocols, payload content, packet transmission timestamps, behavioral analysis, NetFlow metrics, etc.) to identify threats and anomalies, while network monitoring software tends to focus on broader performance metrics like bandwidth usage and device availability.
In the past, NTA tools were primarily focused on monitoring and analyzing network traffic for performance optimization and troubleshooting purposes. They provided basic traffic monitoring capabilities, such as bandwidth usage and protocol analysis, but lacked advanced security features.
However, with the increasing sophistication of cyber threats, NTA software has evolved to become a critical component of modern cybersecurity defenses. Today’s NTA tools offer advanced capabilities, such as deep packet inspection, behavioral analysis, and machine learning algorithms, to detect and respond to complex security threats in real-time.
Moreover, NTA software has become more integrated with other security technologies, such as SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) systems and endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, to provide a more holistic view of the organization’s security posture.
Overall, the evolution of NTA software reflects the changing nature of cyber threats and the need for more advanced and integrated security solutions to protect organizations’ networks and data.
Best Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Software: What To Look For
When choosing the best Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) software for their organization, there are several factors, features, and capabilities that organizations should consider:
- Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): DPI allows the software to analyze the contents of network packets, enabling it to detect and identify specific applications, protocols, and threats. Look for NTA software that offers robust DPI capabilities for detailed traffic analysis.
- Behavioral Analysis: This feature enables the software to establish a baseline of normal network behavior and detect deviations that may indicate suspicious activity. NTA software with advanced behavioral analysis can help identify unknown threats and zero-day attacks.
- Real-time Monitoring and Alerts: The ability to monitor network traffic in real-time and provide immediate alerts for suspicious or anomalous behavior is crucial for effective threat detection and response. Look for NTA software that offers customizable alerting capabilities to suit your organization’s needs.
- Scalability: The software should be able to scale with your organization’s network growth. It should be capable of handling large volumes of traffic without compromising performance or accuracy.
- Integration with Other Security Tools: Look for NTA software that integrates seamlessly with your existing security infrastructure, such as SIEM systems, firewalls, and endpoint security solutions. This integration allows for a more comprehensive and coordinated approach to security.
- Forensic Capabilities: NTA software should provide the ability to conduct detailed forensic analysis of network traffic, enabling security teams to investigate security incidents thoroughly and identify the root cause of an attack.
- User-Friendly Interface: The software should have an intuitive and user-friendly interface that allows security teams to easily navigate and access the information they need to effectively monitor and analyze network traffic.
- Compliance and Reporting: Look for NTA software that offers compliance reporting capabilities to help you meet regulatory requirements. The software should provide detailed reports on network activity, threats detected, and actions taken.
- Machine Learning and AI: NTA software that incorporates machine learning and AI capabilities can enhance its ability to detect and respond to emerging threats by continuously learning from network traffic patterns and behaviors.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Consider the overall cost of the software, including licensing fees, maintenance, and support costs, to ensure it fits within your organization’s budget while providing the required features and capabilities.
By considering these factors, features, and capabilities, organizations can choose the best NTA software to meet their specific network security needs and protect against evolving cyber threats.
Best Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) Software Used By Security Professionals
1. IBM Security QRadar SIEM
IBM Security® QRadar® SIEM is more than a tool; it is a teammate for SOC analysts—with advanced AI, powerful threat intelligence and access to the latest detection content. IBM Security QRadar SIEM uses multiple layers of AI and automation to enhance alert enrichment, threat prioritization and incident correlation—presenting related alerts cohesively in a unified dashboard, reducing noise and saving time. QRadar SIEM helps maximize your security team’s productivity by providing a unified experience across all SOC tools, with integrated, advanced AI and automation capabilities.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- Experience the power of IBM enterprise-grade AI designed to amplify the efficiency and expertise of every security team. With QRadar SIEM, analysts can reduce repetitive manual tasks such as case creation and risk prioritization to focus on critical investigation and remediation efforts.
- Disrupt advanced cyberattacks and respond faster with cutting-edge content, including native integration with the open source SIGMA community. No additional context is needed with correlated log event data, including IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence, user behavior analytics and network analytics.
- Easily work across all data source types and security tools with robust interoperability. Equipped with over 700 prebuilt integrations and partner extensions, QRadar SIEM seamlessly integrates with your existing threat detection tools to ensure you get complete visibility across your security ecosystem.
IDEAL FOR:
- Enterprise
- Mid-market
PRODUCT WEBSITE: IBM Security QRadar SIEM
2. Progress WhatsUp Gold
Monitor up/down status, availability, and performance at-a-glance. Avoid downtime with a network monitoring tool that covers both on-premise and cloud environments. Catch network issues before users report them. Troubleshoot faster and smarter with an interactive topology map that shows connectivity and dependencies.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- Monitor devices: Servers, routers, storage, wireless, virtual, cloud devices and more.
- Monitor applications: Alert and report on performance, response times and an array of other metrics.
- Analyze network traffic: Identify bandwidth hogs and suspicious connections.
- Manage configurations: Automate configuration backups and restores to reduce errors and support compliance requirements.
IDEAL FOR:
- Enterprise
- Mid-market
PRODUCT WEBSITE: Progress WhatsUp Gold
3. FortiAnalyzer
FortiAnalyzer streamlines threat intelligence, AI-driven assistance, and security automation, integrating IT and OT systems within a unified framework. This lightweight deployment delivers essential SecOps capabilities, transforming raw data into actionable insights. It enhances operational efficiency, resolves security bottlenecks, and offers both historical and real-time analysis.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- Simplified and unified operations: Maximize security efficiency with FortiAnalyzer’s unified data management. FortiAnalyzer centralizes all Security Fabric configurations, events, and alerts, offering a streamlined and enriched operational experience. Dive into advanced threat visualization with intuitive dashboards and sophisticated threat topologies, converting complex data into actionable insights.
- FortiAI (Generative AI for FortiAnalyzer): Elevate your security operations with FortiAnalyzer, merging AI assistance and cutting-edge security automation. It seamlessly integrates with FortiAI and features a context-aware GenAI assistant for enhanced threat management. Streamline operations with AI-recommended practices and ready-to-deploy security automation packs, including playbooks, premium reports, and more—continuously updated.
- Continuous security posture assessment: Stay ahead with the FortiAnalyzer Attack Surface Security Rating Service, which offers a real-time security-posture evaluation. This service continuously assesses your organization’s security health, including unpatched vulnerabilities and critical security settings. Benefit from real-time monitoring and analysis of your Security Fabric deployment and gain valuable insights with scores for security posture, Fabric coverage, and optimization.
IDEAL FOR:
- Enterprise
- Mid-market
PRODUCT WEBSITE: FortiAnalyzer
4. SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
Real-time network utilization monitoring tool, NetFlow analyzer, and bandwidth monitoring software.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- Bandwidth monitoring
- Traffic analysis
- Netflow collector
- Network congestion
IDEAL FOR:
- Enterprise
- Mid-market
PRODUCT WEBSITE: SolarWinds NetFlow Traffic Analyzer
5. Kentik
Network and cloud observability for the entire organization. Pinpoint the root cause faster than ever before.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- Rapidly resolve outages with the answer to every network question at your fingertips.
- Make hybrid cloud networks faster, lower-cost, and more secure with insights across environments.
- Use automated peering and cost analysis to minimize hops and boost efficiency.
IDEAL FOR:
- Enterprise
- Mid-market
PRODUCT WEBSITE: Kentik
6. Datadog
Network Performance Monitoring. End-to-end visibility into on-prem and cloud networks, including application-layer performance and the health of bare-metal appliances.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- Act on real-time network insights: Use visualizations of network traffic across applications, containers, availability zones, and datacenters to help optimize your migrations. Track key network metrics, such as TCP retransmits, latency, and connection churn. Monitor the health of traffic between any two endpoints at the app, IP address, port, or process ID (PID) layers.
- See what matters—not just IP addresses: View communication between services, pods, cloud regions, and cloud resources. Isolate network issues in your Envoy-powered service mesh and troubleshoot inefficient load balancing. Manage cloud networking costs by pinpointing the services and teams responsible for large traffic spikes.
- Gain deep DNS visibility: Analyze system-wide DNS performance without having to SSH into individual machines. Assess DNS server health with request-volume, response-time, and error-code metrics. Distinguish between client-side errors and server-side failures.
- Monitor connections to cloud services: Observe and analyze traffic to Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing (ELB),GCP BigQuery, and other managed cloud services. Filter down into subcomponents such as specific S3 buckets or RDS databases for more granular insights. Pivot to integration metrics to determine if an issue lies with a cloud provider or originates from your systems
IDEAL FOR:
- Mid-market
- Enterprise
PRODUCT WEBSITE: Datadog
7. Bitdefender Network Traffic Security Analytics
Bitdefender Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) is a key component of eXtended Detection and Response (XDR) that applies threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavior analytics to the network traffic to detect advanced attacks early and enable effective threat response.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- Detect advanced threats in real-time: Initial access techniques use various entry vectors to gain their foothold within a network. Techniques include targeted spear-phishing and exploiting weaknesses of various devices connected to the network. NTA provides insights into threat-related network activity for any device on the network.
- Get 360 degrees visibility and cyber threats insights: Gaining quick and comprehensive visibility on security events across the entire environment reduces investigation time and speeds up the incident response. The events information obtained from the network sensors complements another endpoint/non-endpoint telemetry source and allows GravityZone Event Correlation Engine to build an organizational view of each security incident.
- Protect IoT & BYOD: The Network Traffic Analysis component enables GravityZone to learn & track all entities connected to the corporate environment. It provides organizations with an effective option to detect malicious activities that are affecting endpoints that cannot be protected by using an agent (like IOT) or that are not under the direct management of corporate IT (like BYOD).
IDEAL FOR:
- Mid-market
- Small business
PRODUCT WEBSITE: Bitdefender Network Traffic Security Analytics
8. NetFlow Analyzer
NetFlow Analyzer, primarily a bandwidth monitoring tool, has been optimizing thousands of networks across the World by giving holistic view about their network bandwidth and traffic patterns. NetFlow Analyzer is a unified network traffic monitor that collects, analyzes and reports about what your network bandwidth is being used for and by whom. NetFlow Analyzer is the trusted partner optimizing the bandwidth usage of over a million interfaces worldwide apart from performing network forensics, network traffic analysis and network flow monitoring.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- Bandwidth monitoring & traffic analysis: Monitor network bandwidth and traffic patterns at an interface-specific level. Drill down into interface level details to discover traffic patterns and device performance. Get real-time insight into your network bandwidth with one minute granularity reports.
- Network forensics and security analysis: Detect a broad spectrum of external and internal security threats using Continuous Stream Mining Engine technology. Track network anomalies that surpass your network firewall. Identify context-sensitive anomalies and zero-day intrusions using NetFlow Analyzer.
- App-centric Monitoring and shape app traffic: Recognize and classify non-standard applications that hog your network bandwidth using our NetFlow traffic analyzer. Reconfigure policies with traffic shaping technique via ACL or class-based policy to gain control over bandwidth-hungry applications. NetFlow Analyzer leverages on Cisco NBAR to give you deep visibility into layer 7 traffic and recognize applications that use dynamic port numbers or hide behind well-known ports.
IDEAL FOR:
- Mid-market
- Enterprise
PRODUCT WEBSITE: NetFlow Analyzer
9. SparrowIQ
SparrowIQ is an easy to setup and use solution that complements existing network management systems by providing total network traffic analysis and visibility.
STATS & SPECIFICATIONS:
- See who and what is on your network: Sparrow IQ can finally let you see what traffic is running on your network. At a glance, the auto-updating dashboard provides a view into the overall traffic statistics, who is using the most bandwidth, what applications are causing network congestion, where the traffic is going, at what time and a lot more. From there you can interactively drill down to get more detailed information by conversation, user, application, class of service, traffic volume, bandwidth, country, and domain.
- Get alerted based on network traffic activity: You don’t have the time to monitor your network 24/7 – Sparrow IQ will do it for you and can alert you before a small issue turns into a big one. Configure custom alerts and receive email notifications when a user, group or application is hogging more than its share of network resources.
- Easy network troubleshooting: Degraded application or service performance, especially those that are hosted off-site can often be traced back to an over utilization of bandwidth on the most common bottleneck, the internet gateway. Sparrow IQ can help you quickly explore and diagnose network slowdowns and pinpoint if business critical applications are being starved for bandwidth.
- Look for network trends with historical reports: Network traffic is continuously growing and keeping a handle on overall usage trends is a necessity. Sparrow IQ can generate detailed historical reports showing incoming & outgoing traffic by configured business groups, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Sparrow IQ includes a variety of predefined reports ranging from executive summaries to detailed single user activity reports.
IDEAL FOR:
- Mid-market
- Small business
PRODUCT WEBSITE: SparrowIQ
In Conclusion…
Selecting the right Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) software is a critical decision for organizations looking to enhance their network security posture.
The best NTA software should offer a combination of advanced features and capabilities, such as deep packet inspection, behavioral analysis, real-time monitoring, and scalability. It should also integrate seamlessly with existing security tools and provide user-friendly interfaces for easy navigation and access to information.
Additionally, NTA software with forensic capabilities and compliance reporting can help organizations meet regulatory requirements and investigate security incidents effectively. Lastly, considering cost-effectiveness and the overall fit with the organization’s budget and requirements is essential when choosing the best NTA software.