Flowmon

Progress Flowmon is a core network monitoring and security tool. Confirming if it is up and running can mean the difference between responding to a data breach or overlooking such a critical event. Like any other critical system, it is a good practice to include the monitoring of Flowmon uptime, resource consumption and health in an IT infrastructure monitoring (ITIM) dashboard, such as Progress WhatsUp Gold. Like many other ITIM tools, WhatsUp Gold provides various remote monitoring capabilities, such as SNMP, SSH or REST API-based "active" (WhatsUp Gold initiated) monitors or "passive" (Flowmon-initiated) Syslog monitoring. Depending on your environment size, either the WhatsUp Gold Free edition (for smaller deployments) or a commercially licensed version (for larger environments) would suffice.

AI-powered Network Detection and Response (NDR) solutions have become a staple for identifying the subtle indicators of unknown threats, a crucial element in the constant battle against cyberattacks. While NDR excels in unveiling the shadows of the unfamiliar, it is the traditional signature-based Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) enabling security teams to maximize protection and facilitate targeted responses, particularly when confronting well-known malware. In this article, we delve into the distinct benefits of both AI-driven NDR and conventional approaches. We will also unravel compelling reasons why the integration of these technologies are strategic imperatives in assisting to fortify cybersecurity defenses.

Endpoint protection has long been fundamental to cybersecurity. But in today’s evolving and expanding digital landscape, with endpoints spanning a wide variety of devices, is traditional endpoint security enough? The ongoing frequency of successful cyberattacks suggests not. Cloud proliferation, remote work and expanding system access add to the challenge. Can you truly trust users to keep their devices secure amidst this shifting landscape? And can augmenting endpoint security with additional tools, like Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, enable reliable detection of threats? According to attack data and experience, your cybersecurity stack may require something extra. And that something is Network Detection and Response (NDR).

From the perspective of network administrator and operator, the fundamental requirements for network applications are the same regardless of the environment they are running in. They need to have their network communication fast, reliable and secure. To meet these requirements, we need to have relevant data about the application traffic. For this purpose, the flow data from Progress Flowmon Probes fits greatly with a slight difference in comparison to the flows generated in a standard network. It is necessary to correlate the flow data with particular network applications or services running in Kubernetes (k8s). For this purpose, we use k8s metadata rather than relying on IP addresses, as pods are regularly created and destroyed meaning that the traffic for a specific application can be made up of many different IPs in a short period of time. It's also likely that the same IP address will be associated with multiple applications in a limited period of time.