Ensuring bolt-tight security in wide-open networking environments

Open computing environments … decentralized networking architectures … high-bandwidth connections … peer-peer applications …social networking Websites … technologically savvy students: The network security challenges facing higher education transcend those of many other industries. Yet not only must today’s university protect its complex network infrastructure from crippling security attacks – it must often provide connectivity to global research communities as well.

The Arbor Peakflow platform is a versatile solution that will benefit both the network operations and security teams in higher educational institutions. Security teams can harden the most open, decentralized networks against internal and external threats – without disrupting legitimate traffic. Meanwhile network engineers gain the broadest possible view of network traffic to ensure 24x7 availability and connectivity.

The Peakflow solution

• Leverages "IP Flow" technology in your existing network switch and router infrastructure to deliver cost-effective network-wide visibility for real-time analysis, historical reporting or capacity planning purposes.
• Conducts Network Behavioral Analysis (NBA) to automatically determine what's “normal” on your network and subsequently alert you to abnormalities which could be caused by simple mis-configurations or unauthorized malicious activity such as: scans/floods, fast spreading worms, phishing attempts, botnets, spy/malware or internal misuse.
• Pinpoints internal abusers through identity tracking by displaying network traffic by user name and host IP address.
• Provides another layer of defense in your “defense in-depth strategy,” as it not only complements existing security products, such as firewalls, IDS/IPS and AV, but also augments them by detecting new zero-day threats or insider misuse that are missed by those same products.
• Is backed by a team of industry-leading security researchers called the Arbor Security Engineering & Response Team (ASERT) , who provide up-to-date information and network behavioral “fingerprints” via the Active Threat Feed (ATF) service, for detection and analysis of known and unknown threats such as worms, botnets, phishing/pharming, host/ports scans and other malware.
• Easily produces customizable, on-demand or scheduled network usage reports which can ease the burden associated with meeting internal use policy/compliance or conducting in-depth forensics.