Network Security Monitoring
SentryWire delivers enterprise-grade network security monitoring through continuous, full packet capture. By preserving complete network traffic, security teams gain defensible visibility for threat detection, incident response, and compliance-driven investigations.
Why Network Security Monitoring Requires Full Packet Capture
Modern networks generate enormous volumes of network traffic, much of it encrypted. Traditional security monitoring approaches rely on logs, flow data, or host-based alerts without packet evidence, creating visibility gaps that delay threat detection and limit investigations.
Network security monitoring based on full packet capture eliminates those gaps by capturing every packet, session, and protocol, enabling security teams to:
Perform continuous monitoring of network activity
Detect suspicious or malicious activity with greater accuracy
Validate intrusion detection alerts with packet-level evidence
Investigate security incidents long after they occur
Meet compliance and audit requirements with defensible data
For organizations where security monitoring must be accurate, auditable, and long-term, packet-level visibility is foundational.
What Is Network Security Monitoring?
Network security monitoring is the continuous analysis of network traffic to detect threats, identify unauthorized access, and support incident response and compliance requirements.
Effective security monitoring depends on high-fidelity network data that reflects what actually occurred on the network — not summaries, samples, or inferred behavior.
SentryWire enables network security monitoring by capturing complete packet data that supports:
Threat detection and threat hunting
Incident response and forensic investigations
Alerts mapped to MITRE ATTACK tactics and techniques
Network forensics and evidence preservation
ICS / OT security monitoring for critical infrastructure environments
Full packet capture complements HIDS, SIEM, NDR, and security analytics platforms by providing the authoritative source of truth they rely on — the packets themselves.
Challenges in Modern Network Security Monitoring
Visibility Gaps from Flow-Only and Log-Based Security Tools
Logs, flow records, and alerts provide indicators — not evidence. Without packet data, security teams lack the visibility needed to fully understand network activity, confirm threats, or reconstruct events.
Limited Retention for Security Investigations
Many security monitoring tools retain data for short periods, preventing investigation of slow-moving threats, insider activity, or breaches discovered weeks or months later.
Performance Limitations in High-Volume Networks
Legacy packet capture and intrusion detection systems struggle to keep pace with enterprise-scale network traffic, resulting in dropped packets and incomplete monitoring.
Compliance and Audit Risk
Regulated organizations must demonstrate continuous monitoring, accurate detection, and forensic readiness. Incomplete network data increases audit risk and regulatory exposure.
SentryWire’s Network Security Monitoring Capabilities
Complete Packet-Level Network Visibility
SentryWire captures all network traffic across, enabling continuous security monitoring and eliminating snapshot-based blind spots.
Threat Detection and Alert Validation
Security teams validate alerts from intrusion detection systems and security analytics platforms using raw packet evidence, improving detection accuracy and reducing false positives..
High-Performance, Scalable Architecture
Built on commodity hardware, SentryWire sustains high-throughput packet capture in enterprise and federal environments without the performance constraints of proprietary hardware systems.
Incident Response and Network Forensics
Full session reconstruction, file carving, and payload inspection enable precise investigation of security incidents, suspicious activity, and potential breaches.
Long-Term Packet Retention
SentryWire supports extended retention to meet compliance and forensic requirements, enabling retrospective investigation of network security incidents without excessive storage cost.
Integrated Visualization and Analysis
Built-in modern visual analysis tools help security teams quickly identify malicious activity, abnormal network behavior, and patterns across large volumes of packet data.
Why SentryWire for Network Security Monitoring
SentryWire is built for organizations that require continuous, defensible network security monitoring backed by full packet capture. By preserving complete network traffic with long-term retention, SentryWire supports accurate threat detection, incident response, and forensic investigations at enterprise scale.
Designed for federal agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and regulated enterprises, SentryWire supports compliance-driven security monitoring aligned with frameworks such as OMB M-21-31, CDM, NERC-CIP, SOC 2, and SEC 17a-4 — ensuring audit-ready visibility that remains effective for years, not quarters.
FAQs
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Network security monitoring focuses on continuous threat detection, unauthorized access identification, and forensic readiness using packet-level data. Network troubleshooting tools focus on short-term performance issues and lack the depth required for security investigations.
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Full packet capture preserves complete network traffic, enabling accurate threat detection, investigation of suspicious activity, and validation of security incidents that cannot be confirmed using logs or flow data alone.
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SentryWire enables security teams to reconstruct sessions, analyze payloads, and investigate malicious activity directly from packet data, even months after an incident is identified.
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Yes. SentryWire supports analysis of encrypted traffic using metadata, session behavior, and traffic patterns while retaining packet evidence for deeper inspection when permitted.
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Yes. SentryWire is designed for ICS and OT environments where continuous monitoring, availability, and compliance are critical, supporting long-term visibility without disrupting operational systems.