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Proactive Threat Detection and Incident Response with Arista Networks

The expansion of networks in recent years has boasted network capacity by staggering measures. Today, networks can seamlessly connect a diversity of devices and infrastructures. Hot on the heels of this development has arrived an even bigger need- the need for network services to be always up and high-speed. Arista Networks, at the Security Field Day event of March, presented their newly embedded NDR capabilities that can create a secure and safe network infrastructure.

The Challenges Associated with Intrusion Detection at Hardware Level

With network size, complexity too has grown at par. Today’s networks not only host a profusion of devices, but is also more segmented than ever. Deploying security products in such a complex network architecture is a costly proposition.

Traditionally enterprises rely on NetFlow-based solutions for intrusion detection in the hardware but it’s time that changed. Since a long time, businesses have relied on the same technologies for threat detection. The emergence of new threats has rendered these legacy technologies ineffective. Moreover, these solutions may do a fairly good job with inspection, but they do not offer any analysis or insights into the threats. That is a significant drawback when network security is transitioning from reactive to proactive.

Arista Networks Embeds NDR Capabilities into Hardware

In response to the rising demand for security technologies that support proactive detection and prevention, Arista Networks designed a system that enables users to bypass the hard work surrounding threat detection in hardware. Just about a month back, late in February, Arista Networks announced new security capabilities for its campus network 720XP series switches. In this new update, Arisa Networks embeds threat detection and analysis directly into its switches.

Adding Network Detection and Response capabilities to this, they baked in security into network with the goal of creating a highly secure infrastructure. Leveraging AI, the team at Arista Networks designed this system with intelligent analytics engine and advanced detection capabilities to deliver clear end-to-end visibility into the network.

Identifying Risks with Arista Networks’ Hardware and Software Stacks

Gary Golomb, Security Architect at Arista Networks presented their latest threat detection technology at the recent Security Field Day event that took place in Silicon Valley. During the presentation, Golomb talked about what Arista AVA can do in terms of detecting the newest strains of threats and later gave a demo of the Arista NDR platform explaining in details its capabilities.

Arista Networks targets the worst kinds of high severity threats with its capability enhancements that conventional security products fail to detect. Powered by AI-driven sensors, Arista Networks’ switches can do deep packet inspection, thus filtering and managing network traffic based on their data payloads.

Through deep learning techniques, the NDR platform helps compare enlisted devices of the same kinds based on behavior, activities, code payloads and such parameters to point out key differentiators that make sense to the security team.

Built to deliver deep analytics based on the network data, the Arista NDR Platform serves the users with device fingerprints and profiles with details down to IP addresses, traffic activities, device behaviors and more which are helpful for forensic investigation and hunting. A full packet capture system, on it, users can hone into suspicious devices to look at threat cards associated with them and indicators that sets it apart from other devices.

Final Word

In the context of the current threat landscape, Arista Networks’ NDR Platform is incredibly relevant and essential for enterprises grappling with the network sprawl and the risks that follow. Arista Networks’ NDR Platform coupled with its hardware infrastructure is an excellent solution to detect maliciousness in network data and Amaintain 20/20 visibility of the network without inflating operational costs.

Be sure to check out Arista Networks’ other presentations from the latest Security Field Day event.

About the author

Sulagna Saha

Sulagna Saha is a writer at Gestalt IT where she covers all the latest in enterprise IT. She has written widely on miscellaneous topics. On gestaltit.com she writes about the hottest technologies in Cloud, AI, Security and sundry.

A writer by day and reader by night, Sulagna can be found busy with a book or browsing through a bookstore in her free time. She also likes cooking fancy things on leisurely weekends. Traveling and movies are other things high on her list of passions. Sulagna works out of the Gestalt IT office in Hudson, Ohio.

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