From the course: Protecting Your Network with Open-Source Software

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What is packet analysis?

What is packet analysis?

From the course: Protecting Your Network with Open-Source Software

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What is packet analysis?

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- [Instructor] Packet analysis is a primary way of monitoring your network. Computer network professionals use packet analysis to observe and diagnose the health of a network. Cybersecurity professionals use packet analysis to conduct passive network vulnerability assessments. The adjective passive here means that whoever is inspecting the packets doesn't take any actions affecting the packets, like dropping the packets or altering them. Attackers use packet analysis as a passive attack tool to steal information such as passwords. The term packet and packet analysis is misleading because frames are what's actually captured and analyzed. Think of frames as container trucks delivering network packets in a local area network or land. Packet analyzers intercept a frame and take a packet out of it for further inspection. To give you an analogy, I can use the example of a Russian doll. Let's say that the outermost shell is a frame. Within the frame you see a packet housed, and then within…

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