Network Detection & Response for East–West Visibility & Exfil Control
Network Detection & Response (NDR) analyzes network traffic—on-prem, cloud, and edge—to detect, investigate, and contain threats that endpoint tools miss. SolveForce deploys NDR sensors and flow analytics to uncover lateral movement, command-and-control (C2) beacons, data exfiltration, and policy violations, then orchestrates response with your firewalls, SD-WAN, NAC, ZTNA, and SIEM/SOAR.
Where NDR sits in the SolveForce model:
🌐 Connectivity (Grammar) → Connectivity • 🖧 Fabric → Networks & Data Centers
🔒 Security (Semantics) → Cybersecurity • 🛡️ EDR/MDR/XDR → EDR • MDR
📊 Analytics/Automation → SIEM / SOAR • 🔀 Control → SD-WAN • SASE • ZTNA
🎯 Outcomes (What SolveForce NDR Delivers)
- East–west visibilitywhere EDR coverage is partial (OT/ICS, IoT, servers, BYOD/guest).
- Early detectionof beaconing, lateral movement, DNS tunneling, and staged exfil.
- Containment in minutesvia SD-WAN path pins, ACL pushes, NAC quarantine, ZTNA revocation.
- Forensics & evidence(PCAPs, metadata, timelines) aligned to ATT&CK for audits and IR.
- Lower MTTRthrough SOAR playbooks and NOC runbooks tied to SLOs.
🔍 What NDR Sees (Signals & Enrichment)
- Packets/PCAP (full/streamed)— selective capture for deep analysis and replay.
- Flow records— NetFlow/IPFIX/sFlow for scalable baselines and anomalies.
- Protocol metadata— DNS (queries/answers), HTTP(S) headers, TLS SNI/JA3/JA3S, SMB/NTLM, RDP, SSH, LDAP/Kerberos, DHCP/ARP.
- Behavioral features— periodicity, fan-out/fan-in, byte symmetry, burst patterns, long-lived flows, entropy.
- Threat intel— domains/IPs/certs, sandbox verdicts, ASN/geo tags.
- Identity hints— map IP/MAC to IAM/MDM inventory when available. → IAM / SSO / MFA • MDM / UEM
Decryption policy: We default to metadata-first (no TLS break) and enable lawful, consented decryption only where approved and necessary. See privacy notes below.
🧱 Sensor & Deployment Patterns
- SPAN/TAP sensors (on-prem)— DC core, aggregation, and critical segments (server → DB, OT/ICS).
- Virtual sensors (cloud)— AWS VPC Traffic Mirroring, Azure vTAP, GCP Packet Mirroring; hub VPC/VNet mirrors. → Cloud
- Kubernetes/containers— CNI mirroring, eBPF sidecar, or node-level taps for east–west pod traffic.
- Remote sites/edge— lightweight appliances at branches; summarize to central analytics over secure tunnels.
- Out-of-band vs in-line— detection out-of-band; enforcement via integrations (FW/SD-WAN/NAC/ZTNA) keeps the data plane safe.
Capacity planning: size SPAN/TAP links to avoid drops; timestamping and loss counters are monitored like SLOs. → NOC Services
🚨 High-Value Detections (Use Cases)
- C2 & Beaconing — low-and-slow periodic callbacks, domain generation algorithms (DGA), JA3 mismatches.
- Lateral Movement — abnormal SMB enumeration, RDP brute/valid, WMI/WinRM, Kerberoasting patterns.
- DNS Abuse — tunneling (TXT/CNAME volumetrics), fast-flux, suspicious NXDOMAIN ratios.
- Credential Theft/Reuse — pass-the-hash/Golden Ticket indicators (NTLM/Kerberos anomalies).
- Exfiltration — large egress spikes to new ASNs, encrypted archives to cloud storage, TOR/VPN proxies.
- Malicious SSL/TLS — self-signed oddities, deprecated cipher suites, cert reuse across unrelated infra.
- Rogue Services — unauthorized DHCP, ARP poisoning, LLMNR/NBNS spoof, shadow IT devices.
- Crypto-mining — pool connections, protocol signatures, GPU-heavy hosts correlating with network spikes.
🧭 Response Integrations (Containment without Drama)
- Firewalls/WAF — dynamic blocklists, policy updates, virtual patching. → WAF / Bot Management
- SD-WAN — steer/blackhole malicious prefixes; pin golden paths; withdraw Anycast where needed. → SD-WAN
- NAC — quarantine VLAN, port shutdown, 802.1X reauth on compromised hosts. → NAC
- ZTNA/SASE — revoke app sessions or step-up MFA; isolate risky users/devices. → ZTNA • SASE • IAM / SSO / MFA
- EDR/MDR — send host isolate/kill actions; share IOCs; enrich EDR timeline. → EDR • MDR
- SOAR — orchestrate playbooks: block → alert → ticket → notify → evidence pack. → SIEM / SOAR
📐 SLO Guardrails (Recommended Targets)
| Metric | Target (Recommended) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mean Time To Detect (C2 beacon) | ≤ 5–10 min | With baselines & intel feeds |
| Mean Time To Contain (net action) | ≤ 15–30 min | FW/NAC/SD-WAN/ZTNA integrations |
| Sensor packet loss | = 0% sustained (alert at >0.1%) | Validate SPAN/TAP capacity |
| False Positive Rate | ≤ 5–8% | Weekly tuning loop |
| Evidence completeness (Sev-1/2) | 100% | PCAPs/flows/timeline attached |
SLO dashboards live in SIEM/NOC; monthly exec reports include trends and root cause themes. → NOC Services • SIEM / SOAR
🔒 Privacy, Policy & Decryption
- Metadata-only first— DNS, SNI, headers, flow features, and certificate intel detect a large share of threats.
- Selective TLS break— only with business/legal approval for scoped apps/segments; log who/what/when was decrypted.
- Data minimization— keep PCAP windows short; mask PII where possible; rotate keys; strict RBAC.
- Evidence handling— chain-of-custody for PCAPs; immutable storage for audit cases.
🧪 Tuning & Noise Reduction (Keep Signal High)
- Build allowlists for known backup/replication/sync flows.
- Suppress expected scanners (vuln scans, discovery) while retaining anomaly triggers.
- Favor behavioral models over static IoC firehoses; align to ATT&CK.
- Weekly hunt calendar (e.g., SMB enum spikes, anomalous JA3s, new TOR exits).
- AIOps in the NOC to deduplicate flaps and correlate multi-signal incidents. → NOC Services
☁️ Cloud & Kubernetes Patterns
- AWS— mirror ENIs (VPC Traffic Mirroring) to NDR; tag flows with VPC/ASG metadata; shield origins behind Direct Connect. → Direct Connect
- Azure— vTAP mirroring; ER hubs; NSG/ASG tags in analytics.
- GCP— Packet Mirroring; project/label tags; pair with Cloud Router telemetry.
- Kubernetes— eBPF sensor or CNI mirror; detect pod-to-pod and service mesh anomalies; enrich with namespace/service labels.
🏭 Industry Patterns (What “Great” Looks Like)
- Healthcare — monitor imaging/EHR segments; detect SMB misuse; PHI exfil prevention; NAC quarantine; HIPAA evidence packs. → Healthcare
- Finance — low-latency venues; C2/exfil to new ASNs; tokenization upstream; PCI DSS logging; Anycast withdraw for sick POPs. → Finance
- Government — NIST-aligned detections, FedRAMP cloud mirroring; ZTNA per-mission; crisis playbooks. → Government
- Enterprise — SD-WAN + SASE + NDR triad; microsegmentation; ISO 27001 program evidence. → Enterprise
✅ Pre-Engagement Checklist
🔄 Where NDR Fits (Recursive View)
1) Grammar — signals ride Connectivity and the Networks & Data Centers fabric.
2) Syntax — delivery patterns in Cloud and k8s inform sensor placement.
3) Semantics — Cybersecurity preserves truth with NDR+EDR+SIEM.
4) Pragmatics — SolveForce AI correlates patterns, reduces noise, and triggers auto-containment.
5) Foundation — shared terms enforced by Primacy of Language.
6) Map — indexed in the SolveForce Codex & Knowledge Hub.
📞 Deploy NDR with Confidence
Get east–west visibility, stop exfil fast, and ship audit-ready evidence.
Related pages:
Cybersecurity • EDR • MDR • SIEM / SOAR • ZTNA • SASE • SD-WAN • Direct Connect • WAF / Bot Management • NOC Services • Knowledge Hub
Key terms in plain language
Open a term for a concise explanation of language used on this page.
Latency
The time it takes data to travel between two points. Lower latency improves voice, video meetings, cloud applications, gaming, and other real-time services.
SD-WAN
Software-defined wide area networking. It manages multiple connections and chooses paths based on application needs, performance, and policy to improve resilience and control.
VPN
A virtual private network creates an encrypted connection across another network, commonly allowing remote users or offices to access private resources securely.
Cybersecurity
The practices and controls used to protect identities, devices, networks, applications, and data from unauthorized access, disruption, or manipulation.
SASE
Secure Access Service Edge combines networking and security capabilities in a cloud-delivered architecture so users and locations can receive consistent policy wherever they connect.
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
The systems and policies that determine who a user is, what resources they may access, and how that access is authenticated and reviewed.
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
A login control requiring more than one form of verification, such as a password plus an authenticator app, security key, or biometric factor.
MDR / XDR
Security services and tools that monitor activity, investigate suspicious behavior, and help contain threats. MDR is managed detection and response; XDR correlates signals across multiple security layers.