Want to Improve Network Security? Break Down Visibility Gaps Between Network and Security Teams

Network teams recognize that nobody outside their group fully appreciates how often the network almost went down—but didn’t, thanks to their proactive problem-solving efforts. These proactive measures stem from increased visibility, as unexpected cybersecurity issues are more likely to occur without a complete view of network traffic.

However, many attacks targeting networks have become more sophisticated and frequent. In the first quarter of 2024, network-layer DDoS attacks increased by 28% year-over-year, with the average size of the attacks growing by roughly 233%. According to industry experts, volumetric attacks run around 100,000 per week globally, with open DNS resolvers being the most abused online. Ransomware attacks are also on track to surpass 2023 levels, with forecasts showing about 2,500 events logged in just the first half of 2024.

As threats grow in number and sophistication, many teams are rethinking their approach to capturing shared visibility between security and network teams. This shift supports faster threat detection, improves alert quality, and safeguards against threats that might go unnoticed.

The Problem with Siloed Data

Network teams work diligently to monitor network traffic and devices with NPM tools, while security teams rely on gathering logs in a SIEM. However, separate data sources lead to information silos between the teams, making it harder to gain a comprehensive understanding of potential security threats and network performance. These two fields are more closely related than you might think, as many cybersecurity attacks harm network availability. No one wins if separate teams work with separate, partial data sets to try and solve an issue or chase down a potential threat.

Aggregated data and complete visibility allow you to deeply understand and explore network traffic while enabling faster solutions to network security problems. Here is a quick comparison between the approaches: 

Separate tools causing siloed data:

• Network and security teams can’t see the full picture.

• Increased risk from missed threats.

• Lack of comprehensive threat understanding.

Consolidated tools with shared data:

• Empower threat hunters to see the full picture.

• Enhances the ability to detect attackers hiding among other traffic.

• Reduces the frustration of network and security teams by eliminating the guesswork caused by insufficient threat detection tools.

A shared data source can help bridge the gap between network and security teams, improving visibility and collaboration and providing a more holistic approach to network security.

Closing Visibility Gaps to Improve Threat Detection

Using a tool that provides high-fidelity, unsampled network data supports security and network teams with comprehensive visibility into network activity. This visibility helps detect anomalous behavior, unusual traffic patterns, and other indicators of security threats.

For example, many network observability solutions use sampling when capturing flow records. However, this method “throws away” valuable information, resulting in a high chance of missing rare events that attackers like to use to “hide among other traffic.” For instance, data leakage might happen only in one out of every 10,000 or 100,000 packets, so it goes undetected with a solution that uses a traditional sampling approach.

ElastiFlow provides high-fidelity, unsampled network data, giving security and network teams comprehensive visibility into network activity. The technology can capture low-level under-the-radar activities and provide early warnings of potential attacks, such as reconnaissance efforts by ransomware actors. This early detection enables proactive defense measures before the main attack is launched.

In addition, some teams confuse network monitoring with network observability.  Network monitoring does not provide the detail and data needed for proper threat detection and mitigation. Network monitoring will provide you with how many bits per second your router’s interface is processing but not the traffic the router is processing.

Related Blog Post: Why Sampling Sucks for Network Observability

As a result, your network team can investigate a potential issue. In contrast, the security team works on understanding the implications of access and potential impact and develops an appropriate response plan.

Additionally, ElastiFlow helps: 

Support zero-trust networks and micro-segmentation. The technology validates existing firewall policies and identifies policies required to make micro-segmentation a reality by identifying all apps and protocols used between multiple areas of your network. This ensures that all applications are working when implementing zero-trust initiatives. 

Safeguards against misuse of your network. Cybercriminals often use an organization’s network as a staging ground for attacks on other businesses, potentially harming your reputation and relationships. Using ElastiFlow, you can gain visibility into real-time monitoring to identify unusual patterns or spikes in traffic that might indicate malicious activities. With that intelligence, you can immediately mitigate risks and prevent further attacks and damage.

NetFlow traffic analysis examines a packet’s header information while ensuring privacy by not accessing the data transmitted. Simply put, NetFlow doesn't view the actual content of emails.

The Future of Network Security

Keeping up with advanced cyber threats is challenging, and teams must adapt to remain ahead of them. Two changes should go hand in hand:

• NetOps and SecOps teams should work together much more closely, ideally merging into NetSecOps teams.

• To collaborate successfully, NetOps and SecOps teams need to examine the same data. The best approach is to consolidate tools and use common data sources whenever possible.
   

Shared data allows comprehensive real-time visibility into network traffic, helping security teams detect threats faster while responding more efficiently. 

An observability platform such as ElastiFlow can help you avoid threats that aim to outsmart your network and security teams.

Do you want to learn more about supporting faster threat response and closing visibility gaps? We created a comprehensive guide, “Top Network Security Problems: How Network Traffic Data Keeps You Ahead of Threats,” to help you get started.