Comprehensive Security Forensics Added to GigaStor

Retrospective analysis identifies network attacks, anomalies

• By James E. Powell
• 03/12/2007

Network Instruments today released its GigaStor appliance with integrated security forensics. The appliance identifies and resolves network, application, and security issues so network and security teams can quickly resolve problems.

Network Instruments’ product expands the retrospective network analysis capabilities of its GigaStor line by identifying security breaches. Operating much like a security camera, it records network activity for future analysis, identifying security breaches by comparing historical traffic against a list of known attacks and anomalies. GigaStor provides drill-down analysis to determine the source and time of any breach.

Douglas Smith, president of Network Instruments, says his company’s product “gives the network team the benefit of 20/20 hindsight in identifying and resolving problems. Having the event recorded, the team is able to see everything unfold as well as run extensive Expert analysis on the historical data, which improves their accuracy and speed in diagnosing the underlying network problem.”

Benefits of these forensic capabilities include:

• The ability to view security breaches in the context of other network events

• Validating and providing evidence for compliance and security issues

• The ability to diagnose and locate the source of past zero-day attacks

The appliance can also reconstruct captured packet-level information into complete data streams. IT can reconstruct network communications, including Web pages (and their images), instant messaging texts, e-mails, VoIP calls, and any file sent over an HTTP stream (such as files sent by a Web e-mail account).

Pricing for he GigaStor begins at $20,000 for a two-port configuration. Observer Expert, with over 70 VoIP-specific metrics, MultiHop Analysis, MPLS Analysis, Application Analysis, IPv6 Support, and Stream Reconstruction, is $2,895. Observer Suite, with an SNMP console and Web Reporting, is $3,995. Additional product information is available at http://www.networkinstruments.com