If you want to stay healthy and live a long and prosperous life, you don’t just visit the doctor annually so they can listen to your heart and lungs; you also follow up with lab work to check cholesterol and sugar levels. You must go deeper than a surface examination to look for factors that the medical professional in the office cannot detect. The same applies to cybersecurity; you must go beyond baseline procedures and perform Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to maintain healthy network and application operations by inspecting packets beyond the surface-level headers.
Why Deep Packet Inspection Matters
It’s the content that matters, not just the headers. DPI examines the payload of network packets and the content, not just the headers. Malicious actors often hide deep within the traffic, evading surface detection. DPI analyzes network traffic in real time, searching for anomalies, encrypted attacks, or unusual behaviors that log detection used by itself cannot pick up. The following are DPI’s advantages:
1. Comprehensive Threat Detection
Comprehensive visibility into network activity is needed to detect and stop cyber threats. For this kind of full-viewing, both log data and packet analysis are required. Log event analysis will highlight user logins or application usage, whereas packet analysis will dive deeper to identify various types of network traffic . Data exfiltration activities, such as unusual amounts of data leaving the network, will not be evidenced in log analysis. To find this data, you need DPI.
Another example is unknown or suspicious protocols that indicate malware or other threats. Again, DPI will uncover these activities by filling in critical gaps left by a process that relies on log-based detection alone. With DPI, security teams can access the entire threat landscape, including encrypted traffic that may bypass Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools. The advantage of adding a DPI process is that malicious activities are identified sooner.
2. Real-Time Threat Detection
One of the biggest concerns with relying solely on log analysis is latency. When you collect, process, and analyze the log data, threats may still be working their way inside your systems. Packet inspection operates in real-time, catching threats in the act and allowing for a response while the criminals still work through your network. Ransomware is known to be a fast-moving attack, which means that every second counts when it comes to detecting and stopping it. DPI allows security teams to monitor network traffic as it happens and immediately zero in on suspicious activity. Data breaches and malware infections require swift action to minimize damage, and DPI is the proactive method needed in today’s sophisticated attack environment.
3. Improved Incident Correlation
Combining DPI with log analysis has the advantage of correlating incidents across multiple data sources. Combining analysis uncovers attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Log event activity can bring attention to abnormal entries, and when combined with packet inspection, threat activity can be correlated and identified. With this integrated approach, your security teams become more effective threat detectors because they can observe and understand patterns that reveal connections between different attack vectors. The integration of log analysis with DPI delivers a much broader and deeper view of attack surface areas.
4. DPI and Log Analysis: A Critical Combination
By integrating DPI with log analysis, organizations can detect encrypted threats, anomalous traffic, and subtle signs of attacks hidden within network traffic. The knock-out punch delivered by the combined analysis is maximum visibility into potential threats complemented by accurate and timely detection. Advanced, multi-stage attacks have significantly reduced success rates when security teams have the data they need to catch criminals.
Best Practices for Leveraging Log and Packet Analysis
Consider the following best practices when combining DPI with log analysis:
- Comprehensive coverage is needed to ensure that log and packet data are captured from all critical systems, including servers, endpoints, and network devices. Security teams must monitor all activity; otherwise, a threat can be missed.
- Your DPI tool must have Real-time Monitoring as a function so that real-time visibility into network traffic is attained and suspicious activities can be detected immediately. Thus, fast response times can be assured.
- Regular vulnerability scanning and penetration testing will identify any vulnerabilities that may not be detectable through log data alone. DPI can highlight traffic anomalies that could otherwise go undetected.
MDR, XDR and DPI Go Hand-In-Hand
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) should be leveraged to detect and respond to endpoint or network-level threats if your company does not have an in-house security team.
MDR and XDR rely on aggregating and analyzing data, often by looking at on-prem or cloud-based traffic. Leveraging DPI can enhance MDR and XDR service by providing deeper insights for thorough and reliable threat detection. This combined approach delivers a comprehensive, real-time view of network activity and boosts an organization’s ability to detect and respond to threats effectively.
CONCLUSION
Log-based detection certainly plays a critical cybersecurity role, but it can’t do so alone. Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is a necessary addition to the process because it delivers complete visibility into network traffic and allows security teams to detect threats in real-time due to incident correlation. The combination of DPI plus MDR and XDR is a comprehensive defense strategy that enables security teams to quickly identify network traffic anomalies and respond immediately to reduce the chances that the breach will be successful. Organizations that leverage all techniques will be better equipped to face today’s sophisticated cyber threats and ensure their security posture is as strong as possible.
