Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer that captures the communication’s data in real-time across a network. It is a very useful tool in identifying a number of network problems, identifying suspect traffic, and getting an understanding of protocols.
Example: While performing a security check, you will use Wireshark in analyzing the strange traffic originating from a workstation. They found that the tool shows that the system is communicating with another server, thereby suggesting malware infection.
Wireshark’s capabilities include:
Scoping through packet information on HTTP, DNS, TCP, and other protocols getting full information.
Restricting the traffic in order to study particular eventualities or abnormities.
Identifying the presence of attack such as ARP spoofing, DDoS and other related attack symptoms.
Real-world case: An IT team of one of the universities was able to catch internal data leakage occurring by a breached device and stop it with the help of Wireshark.
Wireshark isn’t difficult to install and use, but as with many tools that deal with massive amounts of data, analyzing results takes work. This lets you find out what is a normal traffic behavior at your site and focus on seeing when there is a sudden increase or when the source is an IP address that is not normally used.
Tip: Wireshark is a two edged sword. Even though it is very useful for diagnostics, it may be employed for spying. Ideally, packet capture should be done on networks that you are allowed to capture packets on.
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