In this greatest of all growth fields of human endeavor one has already a interconnectedness form one’s living room to the remotest places on earth at the touch of a button.. The internet explosion has gone in a bit less than 30 years from a fantasy allowing Universities to inter communicate into a reality which is never ceasing to grow.
But like all things where there is uncontrolled growth all is not exactly a cake walk. There are so many different systems out there all trying to pass information and data along in a form readable to other systems. The number of protocols is similarly infinite, the numbers being roughly equivalent to the number of developers out there.
And there are also malicious beings on the web, trying to damage existing systems or trying to lodge themselves into the various systems to steal information, passwords, identities and so on. In order to protect oneself from this there are firewalls, anti-virus and malware software programs which offer some form of protection.
But as fast as a solution for one virus is found another springs appears. There are at least 30 million threats out there and the anti-virus industry is huge. But it is not infallible and owners of networks need to be wary as even the Pentagon can get hacked into.
A firewall can be created which adds a level of protection to the system. These firewalls guard against unwarranted intrusions, they also protect an Intranet from the nastiness out there in the internet. Any network operator and service manager will confirm that there are always members on the network who either don’t obey the rules or do not understand them and let things through the firewall. Thus we have the need for a network analyzer.
These machines operate on the network by watching the “Packets” of data flowing and note where they are coming from and going to, note if any are extraordinary and/or distorting the web flow and thus indicating something untoward the network ensuring that all breaches are detected early and can be dealt with or shut down instantly.
There is a manufacturer by the name of Agilent Test Equipment who manufactures a good range of network analyzers not only for network protection purposes but also for developers of hardware and software who need to ensure that their products do not raise alarms and are protected from defined threats.
The correct use of a network analyzer will minimize the risk of an attack.
