Lancope Increases Network Visibility and Security Context with New NAT Support

ATLANTA, Feb. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Lancope, Inc., a leader in network visibility and security intelligence, is now providing more granular visibility at the network edge through support for network address translation (NAT). Lancope's StealthWatch® System consumes NAT fields in flow data from Cisco^® ASA, the Cisco ASR 1000 Series and Palo Alto Networks' Next-Generation Enterprise Firewalls to explicitly define the source IP address responsible for network congestion or anomalous traffic.

NAT technology was primarily designed to maximize available IP addresses. However, it unfortunately skews network visibility since administrators cannot see exactly who is responsible for performance or security problems. In today's era of advanced threats and constantly evolving technology environments, enterprises cannot afford to suffer from dangerous network blind spots.

By stitching a public Internet IP address and a company's internal IP address together into a single flow record, StealthWatch enables users to see the actual problematic host, not just the NAT gateway IP. When coupled with identity data from either the StealthWatch IDentity™ appliance or the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), the stitching and deduplication of NAT records also reveals the exact user responsible for suspicious traffic. Together, NAT information and identity data can eliminate the time-consuming guesswork involved in tracking down the perpetrators of bad behavior on the network.

"Visibility into user identity across NAT points on the network has quickly become critical for effectively addressing security, performance, compliance and other issues," said Joe Yeager, director of product management for Lancope. "Say, for instance, an organization is investigating copyright infringement, or perhaps is notified that its NAT gateway is attacking an external party, and it needs to rapidly track down the individuals responsible for these actions. These types of scenarios have become very common today, and without the ability to quickly and accurately obtain this information, organizations could find themselves wasting valuable time pouring through log files or caught up in some serious issues that go way beyond just the IT department."

StealthWatch collects and analyzes NetFlow, IPFIX and other types of flow data from existing infrastructure to provide in-depth network insight and security context for improved troubleshooting, risk management and compliance. Not relying on signature updates, the system uses sophisticated behavioral analysis to detect the full spectrum of internal and external threats facing today's networks, including zero-day, botnet, DDoS, APT and insider attacks.

In addition to vigilantly monitoring the internal network, StealthWatch also extends behavioral analytics to the perimeter for increased visibility, and is now enhancing protection at the network edge through NAT support. As conventional, perimeter-based defenses such as firewalls, antivirus and IDS/IPS are becoming less effective, Lancope is providing greater situational awareness for improved security postures and more effective incident response.

Analyzing up to 120,000 flows per second (fps) per collector, or 3 million fps total, StealthWatch delivers comprehensive, cost-effective monitoring for even the largest networks. High-speed NAT logging is especially crucial now that service providers are considering using carrier-grade NAT (CGN), also known as large-scale NAT (LSN), which allows for literally thousands of users to share a single IP address and makes it easy for bad actors to hide behind NAT.

New NAT support is available now. For more information on StealthWatch, please visit http://www.lancope.com/products.

About Lancope

Lancope, Inc. is a leading provider of network visibility and security intelligence to defend enterprises against today's top threats. By collecting and analyzing NetFlow, IPFIX and other types of flow data, Lancope's StealthWatch^® System helps organizations quickly detect a wide range of attacks from APTs and DDoS to zero-day malware and insider threats. Through pervasive insight across distributed networks, including mobile, identity and application awareness, Lancope accelerates incident response, improves forensic investigations and reduces enterprise risk. Lancope's security capabilities are continuously enhanced with threat intelligence from the StealthWatch Labs research team. For more information, visit www.lancope.com.

©2013 Lancope, Inc. All rights reserved. Lancope, StealthWatch, and other trademarks are registered or unregistered trademarks of Lancope, Inc. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.

SOURCE Lancope, Inc.