network

Doing Microsoft packet analysis? - Microsoft releases Network Monitor 3.3

If you do packet capture or analysis in a Microsoft environment, then you are probably already familiar with Microsoft Network Monitor. If not, please read my real-world use of it for PROTOCOL analysis vs protocol analysis (with a small p). Microsoft has updated Network Monitor to v3.3. The announcement of its release can be found on the Technet blog. Some of the new features listed are:

· Ability to capture WWAN (mobile broadband) and Tunnel traffic on Windows 7.

· Full Hyper-V support on Windows Server 2008

· Right-click-add-to-alias: Right-click a frame in the Frame Summary window with an IPv4, IPv6 or MAC address to add that address as a new alias. This is one of those little things that simplifies your work-flow.

· Right-click-go-to-definition: Have you ever wondered where and how the protocols fields you see in the Frame Details are defined in our in-built parsers? Wonder no more. Introducing right-click-go-to-definition: right-click a field in the Frame Details window and select Go To Data Field Definition or Go To Data Type Definition to see where the field is defined in the NPL parsers.

· Autoscroll: Another one of those little, but priceless things … auto-scroll. See the most recent traffic as it comes in. In a live capture, click the AutoScroll button on the main toolbar to have the Frame Summary window automatically scroll down to display the most recent frames as they come in. Click Autoscroll again to freeze the view in its present location.

Several other new features are described in the Technet blog. If you capture packets on a Microsoft network, then you should get this upgraded version to add to your toolbox.

Thanks for reading and let’s continue to be good network citizens.

5 Things we learned from the Conficker non-event

1. The media can take a story about Information Technology and say nothing of substance. What did the 60 Minutes story do for the IT industry? It made Symantec look like they could not effectively address security risks and might even create a sense of false security. I wonder how the CBS IT staff felt when it was revealed that some computers had been compromised. Who was this April Fools joke for? Working in IT at times makes you feel like Rodney Dangerfield - “I don’t get no respect”

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Did you see this? - Internet Measurement Testing tools

There will always be some user saying “the internet is slow”. There are many resources out there to test internet connections. The Measurement Lab is one I came across the other day. There are several useful tools under this page. Some of the tools and descriptions are listed below. Maybe one of these will be useful to you or your users some day. Just remember you heard about it on IT-Trenches! Thanks for reading and let’s continue to be good network citizens.

• Network Diagnostic Tool

  Test your connection speed and receive sophisticated diagnosis of problems limiting speed.

• Glasnost

  Test whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled.

• Network Path and Application Diagnosis

  Diagnose common problems that impact last-mile broadband networks.

• DiffProbe (coming soon)

  Determine whether an ISP is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic.

• NANO (coming soon)

  Determine whether an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, applications, or destinations.

Do you manage a firewall and want to find the source of malicious network activity? - Check out the Internet Malicious Activity Map

For those of you who manage your own network, you have to consider the strength of the firewall at your network perimiter, the knowledge and skills of those who manage it. You also have to provide technology that can help protect your mobile users. Part of building that secure environment is understanding the environment out there in the wild world web.This is just one of the resources available out there. Please leave feedback if you are aware of others that might be useful to readers.

I recently came across an interesting graph that shows where some of the malicious traffic originates from on the internet. It is called the Internet malicious activity map (PNG) The graph is from Team Cymru. The graph displays in “heatmap” style in a Hilbert Curve (check this out if you are a fan of fractals). This is an interesting way to graph a lot of data in a small space. As is true in heatmaps, the colors indicate the concentration of malicious activity. The lighter the color, the higher the malicious activity. Take a look at the 85.x.x.x/8, 87.x.x.x/8, and 88.x.x.x/8 sections of the graph. Looks like these networks are major sources of malicious activity on the internet. I would recommend reviewing this graph and determining if the address ranges showing high malicious activities are part of your organization’s network. If so, then be very concerned. If not, then does your network receive any traffic originating on these subnets? Maybe you should consider blocking traffic from these source subnets. See the Team Cymru Malevolence Monitoring website for more security oriented information.

Thanks for reading and let’s be good network citizens!