Practical Packet Analysis

Provides information on ways to use Wireshark to capture and analyze packets, covering such topics as building customized capture and display filters, graphing traffic patterns, and building statistics and reports.

It’s easy to capture packets with Wireshark, the world’s most popular network sniffer, whether off the wire or from the air. But how do you use those packets to understand what’s happening on your network? Updated to cover Wireshark 2.x, the third edition of Practical Packet Analysis will teach you to make sense of your packet captures so that you can better troubleshoot network problems. You’ll find added coverage of IPv6 and SMTP, a new chapter on the powerful command line packet analyzers tcpdump and TShark, and an appendix on how to read and reference packet values using a packet map. Practical Packet Analysis will show you how to: –Monitor your network in real time and tap live network communications –Build customized capture and display filters –Use packet analysis to troubleshoot and resolve common network problems, like loss of connectivity, DNS issues, and slow speeds –Explore modern exploits and malware at the packet level –Extract files sent across a network from packet captures –Graph traffic patterns to visualize the data flowing across your network –Use advanced Wireshark features to understand confusing captures –Build statistics and reports to help you better explain technical network information to non-techies No matter what your level of experience is, Practical Packet Analysis will show you how to use Wireshark to make sense of any network and get things done.

This significantly revised and expanded edition discusses how to use Wireshark to capture raw network traffic, filter and analyze packets, and diagnose common network problems.

Based on over 20 years of analyzing networks and teaching key analysis skills, this Second Edition covers the key features and functions of Wireshark version 2. This book includes 46 Labs and end-of-chapter Challenges to help you master Wireshark for troubleshooting, security, optimization, application analysis, and more.

Leverage the power of Wireshark to troubleshoot your networking issues by using effective packet analysis techniques and performing improved protocol analysis About This Book Gain hands-on experience of troubleshooting errors in TCP/IP and SSL protocols through practical use cases Identify and overcome security flaws in your network to get a deeper insight into security analysis This is a fast-paced book that focuses on quick and effective packet captures through practical examples and exercises Who This Book Is For If you are a network or system administrator who wants to effectively capture packets, a security consultant who wants to audit packet flows, or a white hat hacker who wants to view sensitive information and remediate it, this book is for you. This book requires decoding skills and a basic understanding of networking. What You Will Learn Utilize Wireshark's advanced features to analyze packet captures Locate the vulnerabilities in an application server Get to know more about protocols such as DHCPv6, DHCP, DNS, SNMP, and HTTP with Wireshark Capture network packets with tcpdump and snoop with examples Find out about security aspects such as OS-level ARP scanning Set up 802.11 WLAN captures and discover more about the WAN protocol Enhance your troubleshooting skills by understanding practical TCP/IP handshake and state diagrams In Detail Wireshark provides a very useful way to decode an RFC and examine it. The packet captures displayed in Wireshark give you an insight into the security and flaws of different protocols, which will help you perform the security research and protocol debugging. The book starts by introducing you to various packet analyzers and helping you find out which one best suits your needs. You will learn how to use the command line and the Wireshark GUI to capture packets by employing filters. Moving on, you will acquire knowledge about TCP/IP communication and its use cases. You will then get an understanding of the SSL/TLS flow with Wireshark and tackle the associated problems with it. Next, you will perform analysis on application-related protocols. We follow this with some best practices to analyze wireless traffic. By the end of the book, you will have developed the skills needed for you to identify packets for malicious attacks, intrusions, and other malware attacks. Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow guide packed with illustrations and equipped with lab exercises to help you reproduce scenarios using a sample program and command lines.

Network security is not simply about building impenetrable walls—determined attackers will eventually overcome traditional defenses. The most effective computer security strategies integrate network security monitoring (NSM): the collection and analysis of data to help you detect and respond to intrusions. In The Practice of Network Security Monitoring, Mandiant CSO Richard Bejtlich shows you how to use NSM to add a robust layer of protection around your networks—no prior experience required. To help you avoid costly and inflexible solutions, he teaches you how to deploy, build, and run an NSM operation using open source software and vendor-neutral tools. You'll learn how to: –Determine where to deploy NSM platforms, and size them for the monitored networks –Deploy stand-alone or distributed NSM installations –Use command line and graphical packet analysis tools, and NSM consoles –Interpret network evidence from server-side and client-side intrusions –Integrate threat intelligence into NSM software to identify sophisticated adversaries There’s no foolproof way to keep attackers out of your network. But when they get in, you’ll be prepared. The Practice of Network Security Monitoring will show you how to build a security net to detect, contain, and control them. Attacks are inevitable, but losing sensitive data shouldn't be.

Network analysis using Wireshark Cookbook contains more than 100 practical recipes for analyzing your network and troubleshooting problems in the network. This book provides you with simple and practical recipes on how to solve networking problems with a step-by-step approach. This book is aimed at research and development professionals, engineering and technical support, and IT and communications managers who are using Wireshark for network analysis and troubleshooting. This book requires a basic understanding of networking concepts, but does not require specific and detailed technical knowledge of protocols or vendor implementations.

Applied Network Security Monitoring is the essential guide to becoming an NSM analyst from the ground up. This book takes a fundamental approach to NSM, complete with dozens of real-world examples that teach you the key concepts of NSM. Network security monitoring is based on the principle that prevention eventually fails. In the current threat landscape, no matter how much you try, motivated attackers will eventually find their way into your network. At that point, it is your ability to detect and respond to that intrusion that can be the difference between a small incident and a major disaster. The book follows the three stages of the NSM cycle: collection, detection, and analysis. As you progress through each section, you will have access to insights from seasoned NSM professionals while being introduced to relevant, practical scenarios complete with sample data. If you've never performed NSM analysis, Applied Network Security Monitoring will give you an adequate grasp on the core concepts needed to become an effective analyst. If you are already a practicing analyst, this book will allow you to grow your analytic technique to make you more effective at your job. Discusses the proper methods for data collection, and teaches you how to become a skilled NSM analyst Provides thorough hands-on coverage of Snort, Suricata, Bro-IDS, SiLK, and Argus Loaded with practical examples containing real PCAP files you can replay, and uses Security Onion for all its lab examples Companion website includes up-to-date blogs from the authors about the latest developments in NSM