Before plowing into the details, let’s first level-set and describe what you’ll learn from this blog. “Monitoring” may sound a bit passive but when we’re talking about network security monitoring, it’s important everyone responsible for maintaining peak IT delivery have a proactive plan to execute on sooner rather than later. That’s exactly what this blog aims to achieve. You’ll learn specifically what network security monitoring is, the current lay of the land and near-term impact, what you need to implement for effective execution, and then some gotchas to avoid. When you’re done, you’ll have some definitive steps you can take to begin your efforts or improve your existing initiatives. Heck, we’ll even add some resources if you wish to dig deeper and get into the weeds.
What is Network Security Monitoring?
Network security monitoring is all about understanding (as close to a real-time basis as possible) what exactly is going on with your network with an emphasis on questionable activity. This would include identifying anomalies, possible malicious activities, and potential vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited. It’s typically accomplished by ongoing collecting of data such as:
- Network traffic (packet data): Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and NetFlow/IPFIX data provide insights into communication patterns, protocols, and content
- Logs: From firewalls, routers, switches, servers, applications, and security tools (e.g., SIEM, EDR, XDR).
- Device configurations: Ensuring that security policies are correctly applied and maintained
- User behavior: Identifying suspicious access patterns or deviations from baselines
- DNS queries: Crucial for detecting C2 (command and control) communication and phishing
- API calls: Monitoring interactions between applications and services, especially in cloud-native environments
Of course, different organizations may have specific resource limitations in terms of consistently performing all the above tasks from both a tools and personnel perspective. However, all things being equal, the more of them done and the higher the frequency completed, the better.
3 Big Trends in Network Security Monitoring
- The AI arms race is ramping fast – As with nearly every other transformational IT technology, the race is on to exploit the potential power of AI. The bad guys are leveraging Generative AI for highly convincing phishing campaigns, adaptive malware, and automated vulnerability scanning, making attacks more personalized and harder to detect by traditional methods. The good guys are likewise leaning hard into integrating AI/ML into their tools and tactics to counter these emerging threats by analyzing mountains of data, identifying anomalies, ferreting out vulnerabilities, and automating incident responses accordingly.
- Impact – Traditional signature-based detection will likely become less effective. Rather AI and ML solutions will be required to foil these new threats. Vendors are reacting accordingly, quickly adding AI-driven behavioral analytics, anomaly detection, and predictive threat intelligence to their solutions
- Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) – It seems like ZTA’s day has finally arrived. After steady increases in interest and the concept increasingly employed for more than ten years, the spotlight is now on ZTA. The traditional perimeter-based security model has been under stress for quite a while, with cloud-hosted services, remote work, and distributed networks being the prime drivers. The AI arms race just mentioned adds considerable “fuel to the fire” for organizations to migrate toward ZTA.
- Impact – ZTA shifts the focus from just checking the perimeter to ongoing monitoring all internal traffic and related access requests. As the world moves toward ZTA, real-time network security monitoring is a must-have capability for enforcing micro-segmentation, monitoring user and device behavior for deviations, and rapidly detecting unauthorized lateral movement—among many other things.
Interesting Factiod:
Although the concept had been floating around for years, it was not until 2009 when John Kindervag formally articulated the concept that networks should be designed without implicit trust, enforcing strict identity verification and least-privilege access policies for every entity regardless of location. ZTA is born!
- Expanded Attack Surface: Cloud, IoT, OT, and APIs – There was a time not too long ago when cloud migration, attaching an IP address to anything and everything (for scrutinizing and watching processes), and increasing leverage of advanced APIs for seamless integration and interoperability across services was viewed has all upside for businesses. Though there is of course tremendous value in each of these, it is becoming shockingly apparent there are material downsides. One of the biggest is a growing attack surface that has real-world, negative implications for network security monitoring. Why? Because each of them has the potential of introducing distinct vulnerabilities from visibility and control perspectives.
- Impact – Network security monitoring tools and processes must keep up with the change ‘in times. This includes maintaining observability of traditional on-premises networks. From a cloud hosting standpoint, this requires—when resources allow for it–integrating cloud security posture management (CSPM) and cloud native security platforms (CNSP) making sure of course to update internal processes accordingly. Specialized methods and tools for visibility of IoT, OT, and other headless/unmanaged solutions. Finally, API security gateways and monitoring tools are becoming essential. The challenge lies in normalizing all these diverse sources of data and then correlating events across these disparate domains for a unified perspective.
Scary Statistics:
• The number of known cloud vulnerabilities doubled between 2019 and 20232
• One in three data breaches now involves an IoT device3
• 84% of security professionals experienced an API security incident over the past 12 months4
Five Steps to Effective Implementation
(Re)Gaining “steady state” and with it an effective network security monitoring strategy for your organization is doable. It just requires forward thinking and moving beyond simply buying yet another tool that may or may not be actually deployed and used consistently by you and your team. Check out this table for details:
| Step | Action | Details | Why it’s important |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Strong Centralized Data Collection | Logs, flow, and packet data from strategically placed taps or SPAN ports of all critical network segments, devices, and cloud environments into SIEM or XDR platform. Prioritize data sources based on risk and criticality | Facilitates a holistic, comprehensive security operations view that enables correlation of far-flung events, efficient forensic investigations, and enhanced posture |
| 2 | Enhanced Threat Detection | Move beyond signature-based detection and implement AI/ML behavioral analytics and anomaly detection. Helpful tools here include SIEM, XDR, and UEBA. Be sure to generate baselines of normal network behavior so deviations are rapidly detected | Sophisticated threats such as zero-day and living-off-the-land attacks can evade signature-based detection. AI/ML can uncover these and other complex attack patterns limiting exposure and MTTD |
| 3 | Network Segmentation/ Micro-segmentation | “Divide the conquer” multifaceted threats by breaking the network into smaller, isolated segments based on function, data sensitivity, or user roles. This limits lateral movement for attackers. Critical assets may need micro-segmentation with granular security policies at the workload level | History STRONGLY suggest hackers will gain access. Hence, it’s critical to build walls to restrict lateral movement and isolate compromised assets. Think of it like “fire doors” used in buildings to contain a possible blaze |
| 4 | Get Proactive and Go Hunting | Don’t wait for hackers to pounce. Proactively hunt for threats by hypothesizing attack scenarios and searching for indicators of compromise (IOCs) or indicators of attack (IOAs) across your collected data. It’s all part of “knowing your network”, what is “normal” behavior and what is not. A key part of this is creating a well-defined incident response playbook which should include procedures to automate common response actions | Pre-emptive threat hunting can uncover hidden threats that may have bypassed automated defenses, while automation reduces the time between detection and containment, minimizing damage |
| 5 | Focus on the Weakest Link | Recognize that people are often unwittingly the entry point for many hacks. Ongoing security awareness programs for all employees that focus on recognizing phishing attempts, safe browsing habits, and reporting suspicious activities are essential. For security teams, be sure to offer continuous training on evolving threats and responses | The best security defenses can be degraded or even defeated by someone clicking on an elicit link within an email or navigating to a questionable website. Employees who understand security risks are less likely to fall victim to social engineering, while well-trained security teams can maximize the value of tools and respond effectively to incidents |
Given the unique challenges of network security monitoring at the perimeter, many of which have been highlighted in past blogs like here and here, let’s highlight a couple of things to keep in mind with these five steps when it comes to the edge:
- Strong Centralized Data Collection – Remember many cloud or enterprise-wide security and performance monitoring solutions have limitations at the edge so consider augmenting these tools designed to monitor at edge.
- Network Segmentation/Micro-segmentation – The perimeter is notorious for frequent changes to the network architecture. If VLAN segmentation and switch provisioning are not continuously audited to ensure they remain correct, there is heightened risk to misconfiguration exposing sensitive assets and data. Tools that connect at the perimeter and test for proper segmentation and provisioning are essential.
- Get Proactive and Go Hunting – Many portable tools designed for use at the edge are perfect to perform ongoing testing of the perimeter finding issues such as rogue devices, improperly configured wireless, and vulnerabilities missed by centralized solutions.
Four Things You Must Avoid
Like everything else in life, accomplishing any goal is a combination of knowing what to do and what not to do. With that in mind, let’s describe four hazards you must sidestep to successfully perform network security monitoring of your resources.
- Visibility Blind Spots – “Knowing your network” demands there are no gaps in your view of IT resources. The more holes in your observability, the higher the probability bad things—aka, hackers have made inroads—are happening in your network. Three common areas to focus on include:
- Ignoring internal network traffic – Perimeter defenses are not enough. Many breaches originate internally or spread laterally across the environment.
- Ignorance (of Cloud, IoT, and OT) is NOT Bliss – As stated above, many traditional network monitoring solutions offer insufficient situational awareness of these entities and devices.
- Poor Asset Inventory – What you don’t inventory can hurt you. An ongoing, updated inventory of all network connected devices is essential.
- Too Much Information – With so many attack vectors, hackers have no shortage of ways to go after your organizations, unless in fact the alert is a false alarm! Alert fatigue caused by the deluge of data is a frequent headache for IT security. Here’s the big three ways this can occur:
- False Positives Overload – Monitoring system that constantly trigger for activities that are legitimate, or non-threat events wastes staff time and can make them numb to real threats.
- Lack of Context and Prioritization – Out of the blue alerts that don’t provide sufficient data about the impacted asset, user, or overall threat intelligence often makes it difficult for staff to quickly assess the severity and then prioritize response efforts. If everything is a “Defcon 1”, then eventually nothing is!
- Default Alert Configurations – Never depend only on out-of-the-box alert rules without tailoring them to your specific environment and risk exposure. They can serve as great starting points but often need adjustment to eliminate noise and missed critical events.
- (Not) Loving Your Logs – Never forget, logs are the foundation on which solid network security monitoring is built. Their wide use and availability make them “low hanging fruit” to understanding what is happening in your network enabling you to become more proactive and less about constantly reacting to events.
- Incomplete Log Collection – Be sure to aggregate logs from all critical sources, specifically firewalls, routers, switches, servers, applications, cloud services, endpoint devices among others, If you don’t, you may have gaps in your visibility and hence investigatory capabilities. Often, logs serve as the evidence trail you need to the root cause of the incident. Even one missing piece can leave you without a path forward to resolution.
- Long Live the Logs – Securely storing logs for extended periods with sufficient retention times greatly enhances investigations into malicious activity that might otherwise fly under the radar screen, including advanced persistent threats (APTs) that may lurk for months. It also provides visibility into long-terms trends or subtle anomalies that may point to other errant behavior.
- Avoid Log TMI – For most environments simply collecting logs is necessary but not sufficient. You need the help provided by SIEM or SOAR offerings to correlate events, identify patterns, and (hopefully) automate responses. If you’ve made investments in these tools, by sure to completely utilize their capabilities so as not to be buried in piles of log data.
- Ignoring Human Expertise – Like everything else in life, excessive reliance on anything is generally not a good idea. This is certainly true of network security monitoring. Don’t believe all the hype about AI or other noise out there like “automate everything”. Of course these are needed, but YOU remain a critical part of thwarting the bad guys.
- Never Depend Sole on Tools – No solution on the market today is designed to be “set up and the forgotten”. Tools must be kept up-to-date and constantly adjusted from a configuration perspective and tuned based on new hacker tactics.
- Keep Skills in Tip-Top Shape – Even the best network security monitoring tools require skilled staff to interpret complex data, investigate anomalies, develop custom rules, and respond to incidents effectively. Ongoing education and awareness of new threats are essential—never skimp on learning. Worth mentioning here is the importance of continuously learning from your success, near misses, and failures. This feedback loop, which should include red teaming and penetration testing is crucial.
- Threat Hunting – Mentioned above but worth repeating. Few network security monitoring activities keep you on your toes as well as going hunting for threats. Automated systems are wonderful for finding known threats or deviations from baselines, but true proactive security involves human-led threat hunting – actively searching for hidden, unknown, or sophisticated threats that history suggests can evade automated defenses.
- Failure to Integrate New Threat Intelligence – Network security monitoring is only as good as the threat intelligence it consumes. Failing to regularly update threat feeds, vulnerability databases, and attack signatures means you’re fighting current threats with outdated information. YOU MUST keep these resources updated in as near real time as possible.
Summary
When it comes to network security monitoring, it’s easy to become overwhelmed, especially giving what can only be described as a menacing threat landscape. This blog provides tangible information on what’s going on right now and what you can begin doing (or improving) to enhance your situational awareness, a prerequisite to an effective network security monitoring game plan. As highlighted, there are five things you can do right now to keep the bad guys at bay. Simultaneously, there are four gotchas you need to avoid in order to not compromise these efforts. Be sure to keep a keen eye on the perimeter with tools designed to specifically help here. Examples such as CyberScope® which can provide unique visibility at the edge network where many of these devices typically live and where many of the threats originate.
Additional Resources
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) – Think of this as the ultimate roadmap for managing cybersecurity risks and useful in helping you align your network security monitoring into your greater security posture initiatives.
- MITRE ATT&CK Framework – This is the “how-to” guide for attackers. It breaks down their tactics and techniques, so you can learn how to spot them and build defenses. Kick start your threat hunting here by learning how they plan their attacks!
- SANS Institute – These folks are the OGs of cybersecurity training. They’ve got tons of free guides and deep dives on network security monitoring, incident response, and much more.
- Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Guides – If your data lives in the cloud, these guides are your best friend. They break down cloud security best practices and what you need to monitor.
- Industry-Specific Security Standards: Depending on your gig (healthcare, education, finance, etc.), there might be specific rules you have to follow. Look up HIPAA, PCI DSS, FERPA, NERC CIP, or others for your sector or country.
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