Solutions/Incident Response
Incident Response with Full Packet Capture
Packet-level network visibility that enables fast, accurate, and defensible incident response across enterprise and regulated environments. SentryWire delivers continuous full packet capture as an incident response tool, so teams investigate with precision, confidence, and forensic integrity instead of relying on alerts, logs, or flow data that lack the context to validate a detection. New to the discipline? Start with why packet-level evidence matters in network forensics.
Illustrative example · a response without the packets
- Hour 1: EDR flags credential theft on a workstation. The SIEM shows an outbound connection to a new domain. Nothing else.
- Can't validate. Was the connection a beacon or a browser? Flow records have bytes and a port. No payload, no session.
- Can't scope. Which systems did the host talk to in the weeks before the alert? Logs on two of them were already rotated.
- Can't close. Remediation is done, but there is no way to confirm the activity actually stopped or to show an auditor what left.
- With SentryWire: pull the sessions behind the alert, reconstruct lateral movement from retained traffic, confirm remediation against the packets, and hand the whole record to the report.
The Problem
Effective Incident Response Depends on Complete Network Visibility
Without packet-level evidence, security teams are forced to rely on alerts, logs, or flow data that lack the context required to validate threat detection signals and support an effective response. Trustworthy evidence, not assumptions built on partial data, is what separates a defensible investigation from a guess.
Is this alert real?
Alerts and flow summaries show that something happened, not what happened. Analysts spend time on inconclusive signals because the packets and payloads that would confirm or dismiss them were never kept.
SentryWire: inspect the packets behind the alert.
How far did it spread?
Scoping an incident means identifying affected systems and tracking lateral movement. Logs may have been evaded, altered, or rotated, and the traffic from before the first alert is usually the traffic that matters most.
SentryWire: reconstruct activity from months of retained traffic.
Can we prove it is over?
Remediation is only finished when you can verify that attacker activity stopped and document it for an audit, an executive report, or a legal proceeding. An incomplete log trail cannot do that.
SentryWire: forensic-grade packet evidence, end to end.
How It Works
Incident Response Enabled by Full Packet Capture
Each stage of the response runs on the same complete packet record, from the first alert to the final report.
Validate the alert
Confirm whether suspicious behavior is real by inspecting packets and payloads, reducing time spent on inconclusive alerts.
Retrieve the evidence
Retrieve packets during active incident response to trace attacker activity, confirm compromise, and support rapid decision-making during a cyber incident.
Reconstruct the incident
Reconstruct the full sequence of events during cyber incidents using packet-level evidence, including sessions, protocols, and payloads that logs often miss.
Scope and confirm remediation
Identify affected systems, track lateral movement, and validate whether remediation actions successfully removed attacker activity, supporting accurate scoping and technical incident management.
Preserve and look back
Preserve complete network evidence for internal reviews, executive reporting, and external audits. Search historical traffic when new indicators emerge to support retrospective threat hunting and determine whether earlier incidents were missed.
Architecture
High-Performance Packet Capture Built for Investigations
This architecture ensures packet evidence remains available, complete, and reliable throughout the full lifecycle of an incident investigation. Platform specs and deployment details live on the full packet capture appliance page.
Zero-Loss Packet Capture
SentryWire captures traffic with complete fidelity, even during peak usage, eliminating the risk of missing critical information and ensuring analysts always have a complete record of events.
High Throughput, Low to Multi-Terabit
Dedicated hardware supports both low-speed and multi-terabit capture environments, avoiding the performance limitations common in software-only tools.
Scalability for Enterprise Demands
Parallel capture, indexing, and retrieval operations run without degrading performance, even in the most complex environments.
Efficient Multi-User Operations
Concurrent analysis and retrieval let multiple teams examine packet data simultaneously without slowing performance, which matters during large or coordinated response efforts.
Compliance and Forensic Readiness
Maintain Compliance and Forensic Readiness
Compliance standards increasingly require organizations to maintain accurate and auditable records of network activity. SentryWire aligns with major frameworks and supports the long-term evidence retention required to validate and execute an effective incident response plan.
Alignment with Key Standards
SentryWire supports compliance with NIST, NERC-CIP, OMB M-21-31, and resilience-focused guidelines from NIST, CIS Controls, and CISA. Full packet capture strengthens the organization's ability to demonstrate compliance with these expectations.
Traceable and Auditable Network Records
Complete and auditable packet records support internal and external assessments and strengthen documented response plans. Teams can review historical communication patterns, analyze sessions, and document findings clearly.
Efficient Long-Term Retention
Detailed metadata and indexing let analysts locate and retrieve traffic from prior months or years without delay, supporting forensic investigations, compliance workflows, and long-term monitoring. How PCAP files are used in investigations.
Legal and Operational Assurance
Packet-level evidence enhances legal defensibility by providing clear, objective records of network behavior. It strengthens operational accountability and supports continuous monitoring programs that rely on verifiable evidence.
SOC Integration
Integrate Seamlessly into Your SOC and Security Ecosystem
Support for SOC Workflows
Integrates with SIEM, SOAR, and threat intelligence tools. Packet data enriches alerts, improves automation accuracy, and reduces false positives.
Enhanced Threat Correlation
Correlating packet data with SIEM alerts gives analysts a clearer view of both the event and its surrounding activity, so teams move from detection to packet-level analysis to confirm behavior, identify root causes, and understand the full scope of an incident.
Reduced Response Time
Analysts validate alerts without relying on incomplete logs or flow summaries, supporting faster containment and remediation and confidence that no residual activity remains.
Improved Analyst Efficiency
Definitive packet evidence shortens prolonged investigations and reduces guesswork, and gives automated systems more reliable enrichment.
Cost-Effective Enterprise Deployment
Runs on commodity hardware rather than proprietary appliances, lowering total cost of ownership, long-term storage expense, and vendor lock-in.
Complements Detection, Never Replaces It
SentryWire supplies the packet-level data and evidence that incident response teams use, working alongside SIEM, SOAR, NDR, and endpoint tools rather than replacing them.
Why SentryWire
Incident Response on the SentryWire Full Packet Capture Platform
Effective incident response depends on complete, trustworthy network evidence, not assumptions based on partial data. As a platform purpose-built for forensic visibility, SentryWire captures and retains full packet data so teams can validate alerts, reconstruct activity, and investigate incidents with confidence, even after the event has passed.
Designed for high-throughput, regulated environments, SentryWire delivers forensically sound packet evidence that supports audits, reporting, and post-incident analysis without relying on logs, flow summaries, or snapshots. It runs alongside network security monitoring on the same platform.
Related Solutions
The Same Packets, Different Jobs
Continuous
Network Security Monitoring
Packet-level monitoring that validates every alert against the traffic it was raised on.
Explore →Proactive
Threat Hunting
Hunt across months of sessions with new hypotheses and signatures, not a short buffer.
Explore →Environment
ICS/OT Security
Passive, packet-level monitoring of industrial and OT networks from SPAN ports or TAPs.
Explore →FAQ
Incident Response with Full Packet Capture FAQs
What is DFIR (digital forensics and incident response)?
DFIR combines digital forensics, the collection and analysis of electronic evidence, with incident response, the detection, containment, and recovery from security incidents. Findings must hold up in audits or legal proceedings, which is why full packet capture is foundational to it. What is network forensics?
What are the phases of incident response?
The NIST SP 800-61 lifecycle has four phases: Preparation, Detection and Analysis, Containment, Eradication, and Recovery, and Post-Incident Activity. Packet capture supports each one by validating alerts, scoping compromises, confirming remediation, and documenting findings.
What network evidence is needed during an incident response investigation?
Investigators need full packet captures, protocol data, payload content, connection metadata, and traffic from before the first alert. Logs alone may be evaded, altered, or missing between collection windows, while packets provide ground truth. How PCAP files are used in security investigations.
How does packet capture differ from log analysis for incident response?
Logs record what systems are configured to report. Packets capture every byte. Logs show that something happened; packets show what happened. If logs are cleared or altered, packets offer independent evidence. The two complement each other: logs for fast alerting, packets for forensic depth. Why logs are not enough.
How does full packet capture improve the speed of incident response?
Analysts retrieve and replay specific sessions from stored PCAP files in near real time across petabytes of data. SentryWire indexes packets at capture time, so retrieval is immediate regardless of retention depth.
Why is an extended packet storage timeline critical for incident response?
Intrusions often go unnoticed for weeks or months. Long retention lets teams review older traffic after logs or alerts have expired, which is usually where the entry point and first lateral movement are found.
How long should organizations retain packet data for incident response?
OMB M-21-31 requires 30 months for high-impact federal systems, and NERC-CIP requires three years for critical infrastructure operators. Without a specific mandate, at least 90 days of searchable packet data is a practical minimum, since APT intrusions can go undetected for months.
How does full packet capture support incident response in ICS/OT environments?
Most ICS/OT devices cannot run endpoint agents without risking disruption, so network-based monitoring is the practical option. Passive capture detects protocol anomalies, unauthorized commands, and IT-to-OT lateral movement without touching devices, and provides evidence for NERC-CIP reporting. ICS/OT security with SentryWire.
Can full packet capture help detect advanced persistent threats (APTs)?
Yes. Retroactive, signature-based searches of stored packet data reveal hidden behavior, including living-off-the-land activity that often evades endpoint tools. Signature-based vs anomaly-based detection.
Does SentryWire replace incident response teams or managed detection services?
No. SentryWire supplies the packet-level data and evidence that incident response teams use, and it complements SIEM, SOAR, NDR, and endpoint tools rather than replacing any of them.
Validate, scope, and prove every incident from the packets themselves.
Request an Incident Response DemoDemo
See a Response Run on Full Packet Capture
Free, 60-Minute Demo
A tailored walkthrough of full packet capture, real-time filtering, long-term retention, and integrations with Splunk, Elastic, and your existing SIEM. Built around your environment, your compliance mandates, and your visibility gaps.
- Free, no obligation
- 60 minutes, tailored to your environment
- Same-day response from a SentryWire engineer
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