It may be surprising to know how much hackers and cyber-criminals learn from data networks’ traffic. This is done through a process referred to as ‘traffic flow analysis’.
At one time underestimated, traffic flow analysis is now gaining attention beyond the government and military sectors where it was commonly used to harm the ‘enemy’ among other purposes.
Today, enterprise organisations are seeking tools to prevent traffic flow monitoring and analysis. Network traffic and behaviours potentially reveal sensitive information about network activities as well as an organisation’s activities, for example: sudden bursts of traffic volumes.
Cyber-criminals often eavesdrop on networks over time to determine network behaviours and patterns that enable (when considered with other knowledge about their targets) specific deductions that assist their plans. The targets are oblivious to the eavesdropping and are often unaware of what deductions may be revealed by their network traffic.
Traffic Flow Security introduced to Senetas CN series encryptors provide government and enterprise customers alike with the added benefits of preventing traffic flow monitoring and analyses. By adding Traffic Flow Security to the network encryptors, Senetas has enabled an important security function that is able to be run during the encryption process in a true end-to-end mode.
Originally developed for defence, military and other government applications; Traffic Flow Security disguises the data flows and conceals the network traffic activities. It prevents eavesdroppers’ ability to monitor traffic patterns over time; interpret specific traffic activities thus making deductions that assist them gain a criminal advantage. Just as metadata is not benign, network traffic flows may also be important to hide from eavesdroppers.
