Leveraging Network Analytics for Cybersecurity

Cyberattacks have been on the rise globally, which correlates with the increase in adoption of digital tools for facilitating business processes. According to estimates, the global cost of cybercrimes will reach $10.5 trillion by 2025. This figure was $3 trillion in 2015 and is expected to grow at a rate of 15% annually from 2020 to 2025.

Organizations across the globe are beefing up their cybersecurity efforts to thwart cyberattacks, relying on various solutions such as firewalls and zero-trust network access (ZTNA). Most organizations overlook network analytics as a tool to protect digital infrastructure and assets. In this article, you will understand what network analytics is and how it can be used to strengthen cybersecurity.

Network Analytics

Network analytics is the process of collecting network data and analyzing it to gain meaningful insights that can improve the security of network infrastructure. In addition to boosting security, network analytics helps to improve the reliability, performance and visibility of communication networks. This article will focus on the security aspects of performing network analytics.

Network analytics collects data from different sources in the network infrastructure. The various sources of data collection include the following:

• Traffic flow: This is the data regarding the traffic in a network. It is obtained from network devices that facilitate communication between devices connected to the network. These include hubs, switches, routers, Wi-Fi routers, bridges, modems, repeaters, etc.
• Servers: These are the computing devices that host data and applications for your organization. The data collected from servers are in the form of syslogs, data from AAA servers, configuration databases, dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) network management, identity providers, etc.

The information from these sources is collected and stored. Real-time analysis and threat detection can also be performed on the communication network. The data collected can be used to identify security loopholes, prevent cyberattacks and recover quickly in the face of a cyber incident.

Here are the various ways network analytics can be used to improve security.

Credential misuse. Cybercriminals gain access to digital infrastructure using compromised credentials. These could be extracted from data dumps, phishing attacks, spyware or other resourceful means. This form of unauthorized access may act like a user in the organization and can remain undetected. Collecting the metadata of user sign-ins can be used to detect credential misuse. The device and location from which a user generally logs in can be stored. When the same user logs in from a different location or device, this could potentially be a security breach.

Another facet of credential misuse is the user trying to gain access to resources they are not authorized to use. This again could have malicious intent because insiders are one of the most common threats to cybersecurity in organizations. Network analytics can be used to detect such activities of credential misuse, and further investigations can be performed.

Behavioral anomalies. When cybercriminals gain access to the digital infrastructure of an organization, they do not initiate an immediate attack. The common modus operandi is to loiter in the digital infrastructure to learn the ins and outs of the system, which helps them launch a potent attack on digital systems.

Cybercriminals do not engage with the digital infrastructure in the same way as regular employees of the organization. With the available network data, you would be able to map a behavioral profile for each user within the organization. This can be compared with any network activity and can be used to identify anomalous activity. Behavioral analytics is a great tool to identify breaches within the digital infrastructure of an organization.

Anomalous activity does not automatically mean a data breach has occurred in the digital infrastructure. It needs to be investigated, and the root cause of the anomaly must be identified. A regular user of the network, working on some different tasks, may also be detected as an anomaly. This is why you should investigate the matter and not jump the gun.

Alerts and reports. Network data can be used to create alerts that notify the respective security professionals within an organization. For example, an alert can be created to notify an organization’s security officer if a user has more than three failed log-in attempts. Similarly, you can create alerts to suit the cybersecurity requirements of your organization.

Enormous amounts of activities happen within an organization. A security professional cannot monitor each of these activities. Therefore, network analytics can be used to create regular and concise reports capturing key insights that the security executive of the organization needs to know. With concise information, they can be on top of all network activities with minimal effort.

Cloud security. Cloud computing is the most common way to host and manage digital infrastructure for modern organizations. This relies on a microservices architecture that connects different applications hosted on different servers using application programming interface (API) communication. From a security standpoint, it is a difficult task to monitor and track all the events that happen across the digital infrastructure.

Network analytics makes it easy to monitor such a complex system. The analytics suite can integrate all the information from different microservices applications, which helps concentrate all the information in a centralized location and analyze it. Machine learning tools can be used to perform analytics on large swaths of data and flag security concerns.

Automation. Network analytics can be used to automate various security procedures of an organization. If credential misuse is detected, systems can be set to deny access to the user without any manual intervention. If a malicious application is detected, it can be quarantined automatically. Similarly, many security procedures such as logging, alerting and reporting can be automated to reduce the workload of security professionals.

Organizations must keep in mind that the results of any form of analytics are fallible. You cannot completely rely on automated processes and should still have manual verification of critical tasks. Automation systems must also be continually calibrated for improvement.

Safeguarding Infrastructure

The health of a modern organization depends on the reliability of its digital infrastructure. Cyberattacks are malice you must have defenses against to maintain the reliability and security of your organization’s digital infrastructure. You need to use every tool available to prevent cyber incidents.

Network analytics is a powerful tool that can assist any organization in improving its security posture. In addition, it can also improve the network performance and reliability of your organization’s digital infrastructure. Organizations should actively consider utilizing the power of analytics to monitor and secure digital assets.