TAP Into Technology Blog
Leading the Way in Network Technology
The 101 Series: Bypass Network TAPs Protectors of the Critical Link
Introduction Typically, a network TAP (test access point) is a device that creates a full duplex copy of 100% of the network traffic flowing between the two (2) connected devices. The Bypass TAP functions differently than the traditional...
3 Key Considerations When Building an Effective Cyber Fly-away Kit (FAK)
For professionals operating in cybersecurity or IT within the Department of Defense, cyber Fly-away Kits (FAKs) are mission-critical tools. When responding to remote deployments or securing on-the-ground environments, a well-equipped FAK...
Firewalls vs. Data Diode — Why OT Security Teams Turn to Hardware Data Diodes
Air gaps and segmentation are common concepts to secure OT networks, with the goal of minimizing the harm of a breach and threats by isolating it to a limited part of the network. Unless an attacker obtains physical access to an air-gapped...
Benefits of Installing MSSP Sensors Utilizing Network TAP Visibility
Congratulations on the deal closing! You worked it for several months and convinced Customer A to install your MSSP Sensor. This Sensor’s objective is to plug into the customer’s IT network, capture packets, and allow the Security...
TAP + Aggregation for Gigabit Copper Networks
While we keep hearing about networks migrating to 40G or 100G, it's important to note that many networks still consist of 1 Gigabit copper. Of course, these networks still require reliable traffic visibility. Copper Network TAPs are the...
The 101 Series: Fiber Polarity
In our 101 network TAP series, we have explained the functionality of the various different types of network TAPs as well as some key features. Now we’re going to take a closer look at fiber optics with a focus on fiber polarity.
Ensure Airline Critical Infrastructure Meets Cybersecurity Requirements
The aviation industry is no stranger to technical innovation. From state-of-the-art avionics to AI-powered customer service, airports and airlines have long adopted cutting-edge solutions. However, this technological advancement comes with...
Network TAPs: Invisible Yet Essential in Cybersecurity
When it comes to defending your IT network from cyber threats, the more invisible your solutions, the better. Network TAPs—test access points—are some of the most discreet yet simple solutions in modern cybersecurity.
Keeping Our Nation in Check: The Need for Centralized Security Regulations on Critical Infrastructure
Introduction Consider each essential product or service you consume daily. From running water to internet and telecommunications to sewage lines to the utilities powering your home and everything in between. None of these are made...
Foundation of Visibility: 6 Reasons to Choose TAPs instead of SPAN
Introduction In the evolving landscape of network technology, constructing or upgrading your network infrastructure is a monumental task that demands precision, foresight, and a deep understanding of the components that ensure its optimal...
6 Reasons to TAP your Network
Intro Why do I need TAPs? That's a question I hear a lot from the network and security teams I frequently talk to. Either there isn’t familiarity with TAPs or they may think there isn’t an application that makes sense for them. We’ll I’m...
So, Your Warehouse Wants to Adopt Voice Application Technology, But Is Your Network Ready?
Intro Introduced in the early 2000s, voice application technology took the industrial world by storm — giving a vast range of supply chain workers a hands-free experience in their production line, warehouse, and distribution center. While...
How to Maintain Network Visibility During an Infrastructure Upgrade to 40G
Summary In this blog, Garland Technology will discuss a customer scenario that the pre-sales engineering team recently encountered that points out the watchouts when converting the network speed from 10G to 40G. Read on to learn more about...
Network Design for Effective Security and Performance Simplified
Summary In this blog, Garland Technology will discuss the importance of network design in achieving security and performance and the complexities involved in the process. We will also provide insights and best practices that can help...
Rethinking Networks Op Philosophy: Optimize Tool Usage
Summary In this blog, we unravel the intricate dynamics between NetOps and SecOps, revealing the transformative power of unified solutions. Learn how Garland Technology's innovative network visibility fabric becomes the conductor,...
"Not another installation setback"
Summary Sleds and toboggans should go downhill, not IT or OT network out-of-band deployments. This blog discusses frequent setbacks the Garland engineering team hears from customers in the field when relying on SPAN mirroring for copies of...
Fewer Surprises Make Better Technology Deployments
Summary Gift giving, like new IT & OT network technology deployments, can go sideways when the surprises are disappointing. This blog discusses common surprises we the Garland engineering team hears from customers in the field when relying...
Don’t let snags unravel IT or OT network deployments
Summary The Holidays, like new IT & OT network projects, requires planning to ensure all stakeholders are happy. But often, things don’t as planned. This blog discusses common snags the Garland engineering team hears from customers in the...
The Deployment Defender: Ensuring Network Uptime with Bypass TAPs
Summary In this comprehensive blog post, we explore the critical role of bypass TAPs in inline security deployments. By providing a fail-safe mechanism, bypass TAPs protect networks from costly downtime during maintenance or upgrades of...
Heartbeat Packets: Safeguarding Inline Appliances
Summary Discover the cutting-edge world of heartbeat packets, the soft detection technology that keeps inline security appliances in top shape. This blog post plunges into the significance of heartbeat packets, how they enhance proactive...
Passive vs. Active Monitoring: Insights on OT Visibility Solutions from the Experts
Summary In a recent roundtable discussion hosted by ICS Village, various industry experts, including Garland Technology's very own CEO Chris Bihary, sat on a panel to discuss passive and active monitoring, their functional differences, how...
The Beacon of Cybersecurity Enlightenment: Illuminate Threats with Vigilant Vision
Summary Embark on a transformative journey through the cyber realm with Garland Technology's visibility solutions. Discover how Network TAPs, Network Packet Brokers, and Inline Bypass empower your security operations with insights,...
The Hidden Vulnerabilities: Unveiling the Enigma of Zero-Day Exploits
Summary In the intricate web of cybersecurity, lurking beneath the surface are zero-day exploits – enigmatic vulnerabilities that strike unexpectedly. Dive into this comprehensive blog post to unravel the mysteries of these digital...
Importance of Network Visibility in Enhancing Business Efficiency and Security
Summary Today's organizations depend significantly on IT networks to operate effectively and safely in the increasingly linked digital economy. Network visibility has emerged as a key factor in accomplishing these objectives in recent...
OT Management Fundamentals from Top Industry Experts
Summary In a recent roundtable discussion hosted by ICS Village, various industry experts, including Garland Technology CEO Chris Bihary, sat on a panel to discuss the ins and outs of operational technology (OT). They gave insights into...
The 4 Golden Signals: Ensuring IT Network Availability with the Right Tricks
Summary Discover the secrets to a smoother and more efficient IT network as we explore the 4 Golden Signals - latency, traffic, saturation, and errors. Learn how these crucial performance indicators can provide valuable insights into your...
Demystifying SDN: Enhancing Network Flexibility and Visibility
Your enterprise faces increasing network bandwidth and agility demands. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has emerged as a powerful solution to address these challenges, offering a dynamic and flexible network infrastructure. When...
Increase Zero Trust Effectiveness by Simplifying Your Security Stack
The US government is rapidly transitioning to Zero Trust security architecture. This includes new guidance, reference architectures, and mandates from the administration and CISA for agencies to develop and meet the five “specific zero...
Choosing the Right Pluggables and Cables for Your IT or OT Network
Pluggables and cables in IT and OT networks. They’re a necessity. You wouldn’t drive an automobile without windshield wipers. You can’t fish for large mouth bass without a good monofilament line in that fishing pole. Selecting the right...
Navigating the Complexities of Network Design for Effective Security and Performance
We increasingly rely on networks to support operations and the importance of network design has become more apparent. Network design encompasses planning, implementing, and maintaining a network infrastructure that meets an organization's...
Importance of Inline Security for IT Network Protection
Network security is a top priority for administrators and IT decision-makers, as cyber threats evolve and become more sophisticated. Without proper protection, networks are vulnerable to attacks that can result in data breaches, downtime,...
How to Provide Secure Visibility in Manufacturing Networks
Background Today’s critical infrastructure industries include the manufacturing and distribution of goods such as aerospace and defense, electronics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, and food and beverages. Manufacturing networks...
Supporting the SOC Visibility Triad with Network TAPs
To put it bluntly, organizational IT and security teams have never been in a more difficult position than they are today. The non-stop need for businesses to adopt any-and-all devices has significantly expanded the size of enterprise...
Combining the Power of the Purdue Model with Network TAPs
Years back, companies within our critical infrastructure sectors realized that if they wanted to improve their strategic planning and scale their operation, they needed to remove silos between their production and business operations. This...
“Not another installation setback”
As my daughter approaches her 3rd birthday, we've loosened up the rules on watching cartoons. Now, we all look forward to Saturday morning cartoons … and pancakes. Personally, I haven’t watched cartoons in 30 years. Surprisingly, it seems...
Fewer Surprises Make Better Deployments
I remember it clearly. Christmas 1982. I was 6 years old. I wanted only one gift from my parents that year: Masters of the Universe Castle Grayskull As the big day grew closer, I knew exactly what was in that large box under the tree. I...
Don’t let snags unravel IT network deployments
Maximizing the merriment in December requires Santa-like scheduling superpowers. There are friends and family to visit, gifts to buy, cookies to bake, and Hallmark movies to binge. Likely, there’s also a holiday sweater to dig out and dust...
Cybersecurity Anxiety Transcends Geographies
4,848 miles separate Nuremberg, Germany and Orlando, Florida. But surprisingly, their cybersecurity concerns are much closer than their physical distance. I traveled to both cities in the past month to attend it-sa Expo & Congress, October...
Ensuring Success of New Federal Zero Trust Initiatives
Making Progress with Federal Zero Trust Initiatives President Biden designated October as “Cybersecurity Awareness Month,” and the White House released a fact sheet updating the progress made on his May 2021 executive order on national...
5 Reasons to TAP your Network
Why do I need TAPs? That’s a question I hear a lot from people in the field. Either they aren’t familiar with TAPs, or even if they are, with a low utilization, they may think there isn’t an application that makes sense for them. We’ll I’m...
TAP + Aggregation for Gigabit Copper Networks
While we keep hearing about network migrating to 40G or 100G, it's important to note that many networks still consist of 1 Gigabit copper network links, and will require network traffic visibility. Copper Network Taps are the best way to...
How to Protect Network Integrity with Unidirectional Data Diode TAPs
Today’s critical infrastructure landscape makes up the fundamental building blocks of the connected world we live in. From the basic communication we enjoy through WiFi, internet and telephones to resources we may take for granted like...
Ensuring Federal Cybersecurity Success with Flexible, Compact Flyaway CyberKit Visibility
Recent U.S. Federal cybersecurity initiatives have been put in place to ensure critical infrastructure, whether it's a pipeline, food processor, or water treatment facilities are protected from modern cyber threats and vulnerabilities. The...
3 Uses of Complete Visibility in OT Environments
In part three of my OT visibility series, we’ll review what next steps OT and ICS organizations are taking once they have a foundation of visibility with a TAP and aggregation fabric. If you haven’t read my previous posts, I suggest...
Life saving benefits of using a Network TAP
At RSAC 2022, Garland Technology had the privilege of working inside the ICS Village booth in the Sandbox. It was a great opportunity to teach RSAC attendees about industrial control systems and OT networks. For example, Garland’s Systems...
How to Improve Telco VoIP Troubleshooting – What every Field Engineer should know
I spent many years as a technical support engineer for a Telecommunications company that did voice and data services in third-tier markets. We would be called in to troubleshoot any performance issues with the equipment. Our customers were...
Network Packet Brokers Explained
We all know traffic across the data center is increasing. The migration towards 100G ethernet is well underway, with 28% of data centers undergoing the upgrade as of 2018. Meanwhile, 400G ethernet is available and creeping towards...
The 101 Series: Active Network TAPs—Where, When and How
Network connectivity is critical to any security or network monitoring project. Many are always asking us which network TAP is right for them. In a recent post, we discussed the ins and outs of passive network TAPs which are typically...
Secure Networks Ep 36 - The Packet Forensics Files
This week, our very own Neil Wilkins got to talk “security at scale” with Michael Morris from Endace. They discussed the importance of planning for growth, proper security training, and working to maintain compliance with emerging mandates.
3 Benefits of a TAP Fabric in OT Networks
Every week, I hear from industrial companies about their cybersecurity tools needing access to the data flowing through their OT networks. In a previous post, I shared why companies are constantly looking to improve their OT network...
The 101 Series: Passive Network TAPs
Companies that are using network monitoring tools, either for analyzing security threats, packet flow or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – all have one thing in common. They need to ensure that those applications have access to 100% of...
DATA Diode TAPs in the converged IT/OT marketplace
IT vs OT. Enterprise versus Industrial (ICS). The technologies operate in different environments and have different uses. IT is the arena we all know: computers, keyboards, etc. IT uses a common environment and solutions (the cloud,...
FutureCon Baltimore & Beyond
We had a great time together with colleagues and tech partners at the recent FutureCon conference in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Thought leaders - engineers to executives - shared their perspectives on the current state of cybersecurity. It...
IT / OT Convergence: The Great Dilemma
Whilst people often refer to the utilities sector as a “Critical Infrastructure”, the transport and logistics industry should be considered equally as vital. A country’s economy demands the rapid delivery of goods to manufacturers,...
4 Reasons ICS/OT Networks Need Improved Visibility
IT and OT networks have converged, new technologies have been deployed, and resources remain constrained. Now more than ever, organizations need a strong security strategy to protect and defend their networks against adversaries. The first...
Understanding OT Frameworks & Standards for Secure Industrial Networks
In April 2021, a ransomware attack shut down the largest pipeline network in the United States. Colonial Pipeline, which supplies almost 50% of the Northeast’s energy needs, lost nearly 100 gigabytes of proprietary data. In light of the...
How Manufacturers Gain Full Visibility in OT While Adopting Industrial IoT Technologies
Etymologically speaking, the word “manufacturing” has its roots in a Latin phrase that means “making by hand.” In practical terms, when talking about manufacturing, you're talking about factories – that is, non-residential facilities that...
Upgrade Cabling without Blowing the Budget
It never fails. You’re in a hurry, running late. You’re driving too fast when, suddenly, a speed bump. What was designed for safety has now created fury, as your not-so-decaf coffee instantly repaints the car’s interior an unflattering...
OT Segmentation Best Practices For a More Secure Industrial Network
In the age of the Industrial 4.0 Revolution, data is king. It’s the impetus that drives IT/OT convergence in some of our most critical industries. Smart cities like Dallas are merging IP subnet-based VLANs and utility infrastructure to...
ICS Village Series: Aggregating Distributed Industrial Networks
As ICS/OT environments get upgraded and modernized, challenges surface on deploying asset inventory and threat detection solutions within a distributed network. These include monitoring a network covering a significant geographic location...
Preventing Packet Loss for Optimal Network Performance
Downtime is an expense that few businesses can afford in the age of hybrid work and digital transformation. According to Datto, an hour of downtime costs $8,000 for a small company, $74,000 for a medium company, and $700,000 for a large...
Prevent Cybersecurity Blind Spots by Improving Network Visibility
Cybersecurity and network visibility go hand in hand. Without a holistic, complete view of every packet that travels in and out of your company, even the best, most advanced security tools will fail to provide adequate protection....
ICS Village Series: Overcoming Legacy Equipment Challenges
Traditionally, operational technology (OT) networks were architected almost entirely separate from information technology (IT) networks. As digital transformation efforts within organizations began to include the OT network infrastructure,...
How Bypass TAP Filtering Can Improve Inline Cybersecurity Tools
When architecting inline security tools like IPS, WAF, and Firewalls into your network, incorporating network bypass technology is a fundamental best practice to avoid costly network downtime. Simply put, a Bypass TAP, also referred to as...
Ensuring Federal Cybersecurity Success with Flexible, Compact Flyaway CyberKit Visibility
Recent U.S. Federal cybersecurity initiatives have been put in place to ensure critical infrastructure, whether it's a pipeline, food processor, or water treatment facilities are protected from modern cyber threats and vulnerabilities. The...
Why Do Inline Security Tools Rely on External Bypass TAPs?
As the modern cybersecurity stack grows with an array of threat detection and response tools critical to protecting IT data, active blocking tools like Intrusion prevention systems (IPS), Web Application Firewalls (WAF), and next...
Firewalls vs. Data Diode — Why OT Security Teams Turn to Data Diode TAPs
Air gaps and segmentation are common concepts to secure OT networks, with the goal of minimizing the harm of a breach and threats by isolating it to a limited part of the network. Unless an attacker obtains physical access to an air-gapped...
Developing a Single Source of Truth for Zero Trust
As federal agencies and companies move toward a Zero Trust model following recent executive orders to improve their cybersecurity posture, understanding your network’s ‘single source of truth’ is critical to building an effective Zero...
How Data Diode TAPs Improve Security Monitoring
Analyzing packet level data within a network has become a vital component within an organization's security architecture. Packet level visibility provides essential information needed to protect against security breaches that affect...
Adding Visibility to Improve Network Detection and Response (NDR)
Network detection and response (NDR) is a discipline that evolved out of what was once known as network traffic analysis. Basically, as network traffic became more complex—and more potentially malicious—network traffic analysis had to take...
U.S. Government Response to Cybersecurity Threats Expose Need for Visibility
High-profile incidents such as the SolarWinds supply chain attack that affected multiple U.S. government agencies, the attempted manipulation of control systems at the Oldsmar water treatment plant, and the ransomware attack on Colonial...
Why OT Security Relies on Threat Detection and Response
As the names imply, operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) have different origins. OT exists to manage operations – specifically, physical operations in various sectors of industry that have benefited from automation...
How Healthcare Providers Can Fight Back Against Cyber Attacks
When it comes to industries that are under threat from cyberattacks, healthcare ranks near the top. Although attackers love to steal banking and payment information, data stolen from healthcare organizations can be up to fifty times more...
MSP Hacks like REvil Highlight Need for Secure Visibility
For some companies, managed services providers (MSPs) can be a godsend—a force multiplier that allows them to support more customers and more employees without the effort and expense of expanding their IT department. MSPs are vendors with...
Breathe New Life Into Your Existing Packet Broker
If you have been in networking long enough, you may have heard the phrase “breathe new life into old tools.” This concept is simple - security and monitoring tools only perform as well as the data they process. So solely relying on SPAN...
How to Solve Legacy OT Security Challenges
In the course of everyday life, many of the decisions we make about information technology (IT) in a business context are simpler than they may seem at first glance. If we’re buying mobile phones or tablets to help employees stay in touch...
Ensuring Success of New Federal Zero Trust Initiatives
With high-profile cyber attacks on federal assets and critical infrastructure on the rise, the US Federal Government has shifted to a proactive posture in confronting these threats. The Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation...
Closing the Visibility Gap for Financial Cybersecurity Threats
Financial institutions are a storehouse of attractive data for attackers. Although most attacks against financial organizations don’t necessarily succeed in emptying coffers outright, other information—such as PII (Personally identifiable...
MITRE ATT&CK: The Magic of Segmentation
In cybersecurity, nation-states, cybercriminals, hacktivists, and rogue employees are the usual suspects. They fit nicely into categories like external attackers or insider threats. But what about our essential suppliers, partners, and...
How does asset discovery work in OT environments?
Imagine the following scenario. You’re the CEO of an independent crude oil pipeline operator serving a dozen fields in the Permian Basin, and the recent ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline has got you thinking. So far, your company has...
Building Trust After Supply Chain Attacks
If you’re in charge of defending the average enterprise, your supply chain might be your least-defended attack surface. In the language of information security, your supply chain is any vendor or service provider with a password, and...
Best Practices for Healthcare IoT Security Monitoring
2020 was a watershed year for IoT; for the first time ever, IoT connections like connected industrial equipment and home devices outnumbered non-IoT connections (smartphones, laptops, and desktop computers). And while analysts have...
Network Packet Brokers: Tunneling Explained
We’ve discussed why network packet brokers are an essential component for the increasingly crowded data center, for traffic aggregation and load balancing. We’ve also begun diving into specific advanced features such as deduplication....
Colonial Pipeline Hack Sounds Alarm for Greater OT Security
It’s been less than a week since Colonial Pipeline, the Georgia-based operator of a petroleum product pipeline network that runs across 13 states from Texas to New Jersey, revealed that it had been hit with a ransomware attack. The attack...
Virtual power plants exist and yes, visibility is important
Globally, a consensus seems to be emerging that the time has come to push forward with the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This is good news for climate scientists, environmental activists, and everyone else concerned about...
Understanding Cybersecurity Challenges in the Oil and Gas Industry
Pheasant Energy is a Fort Worth based upstream oil and gas company, whose primary focus is in the mineral, royalty, and working interest subset of the industry. Being over 75 years in the business, we have learned a lot of things, among...
Top 6 ICS Security Best Practices
Industrial control systems (ICS) are the heart of our world’s critical infrastructure, powering everything we enjoy in our connected society. As organizations continue to update their operational technology (OT) with the latest...
Federal Plans to Secure ICS Lay Groundwork for Public & Private Collaboration
Although you may find a certain amount of political turmoil in the United States, there’s a surprising amount of consensus in Washington about cybersecurity. Both parties agree that there’s no room for complacency in the face of...
Pharmaceutical Cybersecurity and Visibility are as Critical As Ever
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been a harrowing experience in many ways, but it’s also given the pharmaceutical industry the chance to shine. In the United States alone, three companies have been able to roll out highly effective...
How Visibility Fuels Network Detection and Response in the Cloud
Enterprises are in the early stages of migrating to the Cloud. As they migrate, the initial cybersecurity focus tends to be on compliance and reducing the potential attack surface. As the migration evolves, the focus may expand to securing...
How to Prevent Ransomware Attacks On Industrial Networks
Ransomware Slams Westrock & Other Industrial Organizations Since the outbreaks of Wannacry & NotPetya ransomware attacks in 2017, we've been witnessing daily occurrences of attacks affecting OT networks that originated on the IT side. The...
Why the Mining Industry Relies on Rugged Visibility and Cybersecurity Solutions
When many think about the mining industry, they’re probably not thinking about new technologies. Instead, they might be conjuring up mental images of grueling manual labor. Scenes straight out of the 19th century, with workers swinging...
Providing Real-time Visibility to Prevent the Next Water Treatment Plant Hack
It was alarming to learn in December that multiple U.S. government agencies had experienced severe data breaches as a result of cyberattacks. But for those of us who weren’t directly involved in the matter, the alarm was somewhat abstract...
From Upstream to Downstream, Network Visibility is Critical to Secure Oil & Gas Assets
As concern about climate change grows, it’s not always easy to think about what the oil and gas industry has given the world. There’s a legitimate sense of urgency about the negative impact that hydrocarbon-based fuels have had and are...
The 101 Series: TAP vs SPAN in OT Environments
Securing and monitoring your network is the ultimate goal. To accomplish this goal, teams utilize ICS security solutions designed to respond and manage threats in operational technology (OT) environments efficiently. To properly identify,...
Enabling ICS Security Best Practices for Power, Water, and Wastewater Utilities
In most parts of the world, power, water, and waste utility services can be taken for granted. Need to light up a room? Just flip a switch, and you have electricity. Hands need washing? Just turn the faucet, and there’s the water. Sink...
OT Networks Set for IoT Disruption
The pursuit of competitive advantage has always driven organizations to embrace new technologies and processes to reduce costs and improve efficiency. In the last several years, IoT has been commonly cited as the “next big thing” that will...
CISA's 5-year strategy highlights need for visibility in ICS
Revolutions have a habit of creating new problems that their advocates did not anticipate, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution is no exception. For example, it seems safe to say that most of the engineers who overhauled industrial control...
2 Fundamental Challenges Facing Critical Infrastructure in 2021
With recent headline grabbing hacks and breaches, the possibility of disruptions in the energy and power, water distribution, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical infrastructure that society relies on everyday, is a reality. The SolarWinds...
Threat Hunting and Incident Response in Azure Environments
When cyber-attacks cross the network, grabbing quality and relevant data from network traffic is essential for security operations. This is especially pertinent in cloud environments where security teams have limited or no traffic...
The Scoop: Best Practices for a Maturing Cloud Industry
Even though much of the world screeched to a halt in 2020, Cloud computing proved resilient. According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker, vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products for public and...
10 Cybersecurity Visibility Best Practices
2020 was challenging in many ways, from a rapid influx of remote working, the maturity of 5G computing, IoT/OT infrastructure, Edge and Cloud environments to the threats that come with them. According to AT&T Cybersecurity Insights™ Report...
5 Benefits of Network Performance Monitoring
We all live on the internet now. It's where we access our news, entertainment, and whatever other distractions we need to get through the day. It's where we do our work, and it's where we communicate with loved ones we haven't seen in...
SASE: Redefining the Traditional Security Model
The perimeter-less, cloud-based working environment was always inevitable, but most thought leaders scheduled this revolution for sometime around 2025. With the advent of remote work, and with the prospect that no one will quickly return...
5 Steps Healthcare Networks Can Take To Prevent Ransomware Attacks
The disruption COVID-19 has wrought on society presented many opportunities for people to display their best and worst qualities. I recently saw a video referencing a remark Amy Poehler made in her memoir, Yes Please that stuck with me....
Optimizing Network Productivity and Application Performance
As a network administrator, you are responsible for troubleshooting poor application performance problems. In an ideal world, Application Performance Management (APM) or Application-aware Network Performance Management (AANPM) solutions...
Packet Deduplication Explained
Duplicate packets are one of those things that happen in a busy network. Although using different network equipment and optimizing your network will minimize duplicates, they’ll still crop up on a fairly regular basis. This can be a...
How to Improve Application Performance Monitoring
As an IT professional, you already know that IT downtime is expensive. It costs organizations, on average, $5,600 for every minute of downtime. But we live in an on-demand world, where customers expect fast, consistent access to your...
Improving Fly-Away Kit Visibility for Tactical Federal Teams
"Fly away" kits have been in use by the federal government for years, gaining widespread adoption around 2015, with the Army's first Cyber Innovation Challenge. "The speed of technology, combined with always-changing threats, demand that...
3 Visibility Tips to Improve your Monitoring and Security Tools
We have been speaking with more and more IT teams looking to stretch their budgets to meet tomorrow’s monitoring and security challenges. Speed and network complexity are outpacing tools they bought as recently as 5 years ago. On top of...
Security in the Wake of Overnight Remote Work From Home Access
In a mad dash to enable a distributed workforce amid the COVID-19 pandemic, IT teams had to make difficult compromises to keep their businesses running. Unfortunately, some of their well-intentioned actions resulted in misconfigurations...
What Is a Packet Analyzer?
Imagine this: one of the applications running on your network is performing poorly, and you have no idea why. You've checked out all the usual suspects and can't find the issue that needs to be repaired. You're going crazy trying to...
Managing Your Unmanageable OT and IT Infrastructure
As industrial systems become increasingly connected to IT, Cloud and ERP systems, they become increasingly exposed to cyber threats such as ransomware. In fact, cyber threats for industrial control systems (ICS) are on the rise. Asset...
Firewall Primer: Best Practices for Avoiding Downtime
Firewalls are the most recognized security tool for safeguarding your network and are a critical component of any security infrastructure. Firewalls are considered the gatekeeper for most network security architectures, allowing only...
How to Defend Against DDoS Attacks and Network Downtime
Somedays, it feels like the whole internet is slowing down, or like the critical applications you use on a day-to-day basis aren’t responding. Sometimes, that feeling isn’t just you (or the result of your slow computer). Instead, it’s the...
7 Threat Hunting Best Practices to Keep Your Network Secure
Threat hunting is one of the few IT terms I've come across that probably sounds cool to people who aren't engineers. But cyber threat hunting is more than just an industry buzzword—or an edgy-sounding skill to add to your resume. It's also...
Why Cybersecurity Relies on Redundancy to Ensure Network Availability
Today, 50% of large enterprises are spending over $1 million annually on cybersecurity.1 The worldwide information security market is forecast to reach over $170 billion by 2022, as enterprises are making huge investments when it comes to...
IDS vs IPS Go-to Tools for Modern Security Stacks
As new threats emerge every day, the risks companies face not properly securing network data is growing more widespread and costly than ever. 15% of data breaches involve Healthcare organizations, 10% in the Financial industry and 16% in...
Adapting to New Security Demands at the Edge
In Part 1 of this “Master the Edge of the Network” series, we talked about the key networking factors you have to consider managing the edge of the network to gain these edge computing benefits. But edge computing isn’t without challenges....
How Historical Look-back is Revolutionizing Network Forensics and Inline Deployment
As you can imagine, cyberattacks are now increasing year over year from a combination of cybercriminals, hackers, malicious insiders, unwitting insiders, nation-state attackers and hacktivists. Their attack methods include social...
The 101 Series: Out-of-Band vs Inline Network Security
Designing a modern cybersecurity strategy is no easy feat, as it must protect all components of a complex network, while having a limited effect on performance. As expected, we get a lot of questions about the differences between an inline...
How to Manage the Network Edge
The ability to detect and remediate cyber attacks pose an existential threat to IT organizations worldwide. A study from IBM and Ponemon found that companies that detect and contain data breaches within 30 days save, on average, more than...
Using Load Balancing to Improve Your Security Solution
Packet brokers play an essential role in creating a visibility fabric that spans your entire network. And as you evaluate the market for network packet brokers (NPB) or inline packet brokers, you’ll notice that many vendors offer a...
Packet Capture: You Can’t Protect What You Can't See
Packet capture is the ultimate tool for troubleshooting your network and protecting it from cyber threats. As important as your advanced security and monitoring tools are, there are two primary reasons why they make incident response and...
Reducing Network Complexity for an Oil & Gas Giant
With the digital revolution Oil & Gas (O&G) companies are facing, integrating their operations environments through AI, robotics, analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT), with increasing connectivity chasing the ultimate goal of faster...
Monitor and Maintaining Your Zero Trust Environment
Cybercrime on local and state governments is continuing to rise, as cybercriminals understand the government possesses lots of data and information that are vital and highly classified. The risks to these federal IT systems are increasing,...
Debugging and Troubleshooting Performance Issues with the FieldTAP
With the launch of Garland Technology’s new FieldTAP, one of the perks I can boast about is getting to test and use new technology. Especially working remotely, I was excited to have such a versatile TAP to add to my gear. With the new...
SCADA Security Starts with Network Visibility
Supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA), or industrial control systems (ICS), have been monitoring and controlling our industrial, power and refinery world since the 1960s. SCADA started out analog, focused on monitoring...
Building A Zero Trust Visibility Architecture
In response to rapidly evolving cybersecurity threats, Zero Trust, a concept that emerged over 15 years ago, is now a strategic priority for government network agencies. Following reports from the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) and the...
How an MDR Service Provider Selects the Best Visibility Vendors
As more organizations use managed detection and response (MDR) services, Garland Technology decided to find out how an MDR Service Provider selects the best vendors to partner with. Sherri Lloyd, Strategic Partner Manager at Garland...
How to Troubleshoot the Network Part 2: Solving Network Forensics Problems
Part 1 in this two-part series on how to troubleshoot the network focused on the most common challenges you’ll face—connectivity, performance, and latency troubleshooting scenarios. And in a perfect world, these would be the most difficult...
7 Common Visibility Challenges in Industrial Environments
The convergence of Operational Technology (OT) with Information Technology (IT), has exposed many challenges for the industrial space, including increased vulnerability to cyber attacks and network blindspots. Unfortunately, many companies...
How to Provide Visibility to the DoD’s Zero Trust Cloud Security Initiative
As the United States Department of Defense (DoD) undertakes the largest cloud migration in history, beginning with Microsoft’s winning bid for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, data security in the cloud is of paramount...
TAP THE NETWORK, TAP A KEG
In today's IT environments, everything is interconnected, and here at ExtraHop, we believe that the best source for visibility into how those interconnected tools are functioning as a whole, is the network. We believe this—not because the...
How to Troubleshoot the Network Part 1: Common Problems and the Tools to Solve Them
The availability of your network and IT services can make or break business performance. A full-blown outage costs 86% of companies more than $300,000 per hour with 34% saying the costs would exceed $1 million per hour. But it’s not just...
Providing Visibility to your Industrial SCADA Virtualization Environment
With ever-present and growing security threats from both foreign and domestic sources, safeguarding utility networks and communication infrastructure has become paramount to protecting utility grids from hacking and providing uninterrupted...
What is Network Visibility and How to Guarantee 100% Data Capture
Network visibility has never been more important to the success of a business, regardless of industry. Addressing increasingly demanding business requirements has led to highly complex IT environments. And unfortunately, blind spots have...
Why You Need Cloud Performance Monitoring For Network Visibility
By moving workloads to a cloud IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) platform, you may think your infrastructure layers are completely outsourced, including the network side, and don’t need cloud performance monitoring. You might also assume...
Using Packet Visibility to Enhance Public Cloud Confidence
When moving to the cloud, application data security remains a chief concern among CIOs, DevOps, NetOps and SecOps teams. While the advantages of moving apps to the cloud is clear, well-run IT organizations refuse to risk a security slip in...
Single Points of Failure: Understanding and Eliminating Them from Your Network
With so many mission-critical processes relying on network connectivity, data center outages simply can’t be tolerated. And yet, nearly one-third of all data centers experience an outage annually. According to an ITIC survey, 86% of...
Provide Visibility and Improved Operational Efficiency for Banking Cloud Endpoints
With the migration to cloud networks underway, companies are focused on the long term benefits of lowering their costs, utilizing faster innovation and improving customer satisfaction. Many industries have been taking a wait and see...
How Does Garland Prisms work with Azure?
By now, we all know due to the rapidly evolving digital transformation, Amazon, Microsoft and Google have all created environments where infrastructure and networking is elastic, on-demand and extremely fast. As part of this three part...
Building a Modern Observability Stack with Garland, Corelight, and Humio
From Packets to Logs to Dashboards Beginning with packets In its most basic form, data travels across the internet in packets — each carrying a maximum of 1,500 bytes — until they reach a pre-determined destination. As packets arrive, the...
Air Gapping: An Added Layer of Security for Industrial Cloud Environments
Despite ever-increasing cybersecurity budgets, attackers continue to find ways around network defenses and are on track to cause over $6 trillion in damages annually by 2021. As cloud adoption continues to grow, attackers are taking...
How does Garland Prisms work with AWS?
The advantages of public cloud computing can’t be beat. Companies around the world are taking advantage of the cost-saving measures associated with public cloud to help scale their infrastructure, provide disaster recovery services,...
Network Packet Visibility for Hybrid Cloud Environment
Nearly all cyber attacks must cross the network, so extracting security-relevant data from network traffic is essential across a wide range of security operations. As teams are moving to the cloud, they lose physical access to applications...
What is SSL and TLS and How it Works in Today’s Security
As today’s enterprises deploy more software to the cloud, while integrating software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications into their critical business infrastructure, the need for security and monitoring is obvious. With this need, SSL/TLS...
Monitoring Business Critical Application in the Cloud with Garland Prisms and Flowmon
When you’re driving on a foggy day, how can you stay safe when you can’t even see the road in front of you? Blind spots in the car are similar to blind spots within your cloud-based data center if not properly monitored. Securing your...
How to Mirror Packets to your Monitoring Tools in AWS and Public Cloud Environments
Traffic visibility is a crucial component in securing a business and keeping systems operational. Organizations have made significant investments in specialized tools that ingest and analyze packet-level data for on-premise data centers....
Networking News [2019 Recap]
The networking world is ever-changing, with new monitoring and security tools entering the market, companies introducing exciting new technology, partnerships being formed to create disruptive solutions, and more. With so much noteworthy...
Don’t Choose The Wrong Network TAP
If you’ve previously read the Garland Technology blog, you know the importance that network TAPs have with regard to guaranteeing your network security and visibility. These devices provide a complete copy of traffic, passing data to your...
Considerations to Building a Test Lab Environment [Part 1]
Today’s increasing needs in the digital world require us to not live in the present, but look towards the future. Not just in technology, but in the way we do business. Hyper cloud, hybrid cloud, the cloud, the cold front without clouds,...
Cyber Security Threat Breakdown [2019 Recap]
Over the past year, we have seen way too many hacks and data breaches in the headlines. Here is your roundup of the largest cyber attacks from 2019, including causes, resolutions, and what you can do to protect your data.
What’s Your Palo Alto NGFW Deployment Plan?
A firewall is a network security device that monitors both incoming and outgoing network traffic, and based on a set of rules, decides whether to allow or block that traffic, protecting the network. Whether you are replacing a legacy...
Top 10 Security Challenges of 2019
In 2019 our team was at dozens of trade shows and conferences around the world. While we were out in the field, we surveyed thousands of people at events like CiscoLive, InfoSec, RSA, Cyber Security Summits, and FutureCons, asking them,...
Become a JEDI Master with Cloud Packet Visibility
Have you noticed the word “Jedi” frequently pops up in news headlines lately? Star Wars fans around the world impatiently wonder how the famous conflict between the Jedi and the Sith will conclude when “Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker” hits...
Cyber Security Threat Breakdown [Louisiana + Disney+]
Here’s your monthly roundup of the latest hacks and data breaches around the world. In this monthly series, I’ll share information and updates on the most recent hacks that I saw in the news, including causes, resolutions, and what you can...
How can your company become a leader in cloud security?
As companies continue to migrate workloads to the cloud, it’s quickly becoming clear that security strategies need to be re-evaluated and redesigned with these new tools and resources at the forefront. When you’re in planning mode to...
Networking News [Hospital Breaches Prove Fatal + California Privacy Laws]
Here are some snippets of news and stories happening around the technological world and how it can affect the industry as a whole. For the month of November, we will be focusing on effects on hospital breaches, tips to avoid network...
4 Ways to Achieve Reliable Security in an Enterprise Network
How do you bring more security and reliability to your own network in a responsible manner? Garland Technology partnered with Flowmon to address the ongoing challenges that defy these exact questions. Together, we have identified a...
Failsafe Deployment of 100G Inline Security Tools with EdgeSafe Bypass TAPs
Today’s networks have become sophisticated defense mechanisms, architected with numerous inline security tools such as firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, web application firewalls, data loss prevention, SSL decryption and more. While...
MSSPs: The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Network Security
When firewalls emerged to protect networks in the early 1990s, outsourcing cyber security to a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) wasn’t even a consideration. However, defending your network from sophisticated cyber attackers today...
Making a Case for Network TAPs to Provide Digital Legal Evidence
Sometimes we come across interesting requests from customers that are outside the normal security and monitoring applications within data centers or branch office locations. Recently, a law enforcement agency reached out to Garland...
Cybersecurity Threat Breakdown [Spooky Edition]
There’s nothing spookier than an unknown hacker accessing your data. Here’s your monthly roundup of the latest hacks and data breaches around the world. In this series, I’ll share information and updates on the most recent hacks that I saw...
Why is the cost of network downtime so high in the banking industry?
The banking industry has changed. Today’s retail banks are actually in the customer service industry. This is due to the fact that there is very little differentiation in product offerings from one bank to another. A checking account, CD,...
Lights, Camera, Security! Cisco Shines a Spotlight on Garland Technology With Threatwise TV
The strong relationship with Cisco and Garland Technology encompasses a host of supported products. At this year’s CiscoLive in San Diego, our alliance laid the foundation for an interview with Jason Wright on Cisco’s Threatwise TV....
Improve Network Packet Broker ROI with an Aggregation Layer
The aggregation layer, and thus the four-tiered approach to network visibility grew out of the need to maximize the ROI of NPBs and monitoring and security tools. Before we talk about the aggregation layer and the benefits it brings, let’s...
Networking News [Tool Sprawl + MSP Credibility]
Here are some snippets of news and stories happening around the technological world and how it can affect the industry as a whole. For the month of October, we will be focusing on what is a tool sprawl, questioning an MSP provider's...
Microservices: What Are They and How Do They Impact Network Visibility and Security in the Cloud?
After decades of consistent investment in perimeter cybersecurity tools, cloud-based architectures have pushed IT leaders to reevaluate their strategies. There is still a place for perimeter defenses like firewalls, intrusion detection...
Garland Prisms: A New Cloud Visibility Solution
The cloud is the future of networking. Over the last few years, we’ve heard from more and more of our customers that they are considering public or private cloud as an option to either supplement or replace some of their traditional data...
Cyber Security Threat Breakdown [Simjacker + Ecuador]
Here’s your monthly roundup of the latest hacks and data breaches around the world. In this monthly series, I’ll share information and updates on the most recent hacks that I saw in the news, including causes, resolutions, and what you can...
3 Challenges to Consider When Building Your Cloud Security Strategy
As a result of the widespread adoption of public and private cloud, companies must rethink their network security strategies. While it’s tempting to think that you can just leave cloud security to your cloud provider, it’s too important...
Capture 100% Full Duplex Traffic with RegenTAPs
With the rise in the number of monitoring tools enterprises are using to analyze their network traffic, a new problem has arisen; how will you get network traffic to multiple out-of-band monitoring tools? Garland Technology recognized the...
Network Visibility: 4 Reasons it Matters for Financial Institutions
How has your financial institution responded to digital disruption in recent years? If you have struggled to truly unlock the value of technologies like hybrid cloud, API platforms, artificial intelligence, block-chain, instant payments,...
Networking News [Cloud Security Doubts + Importance of NGFWs]
Here are some snippets of news and stories happening around the technological world and how it can affect the industry as a whole. For the month of September, we will be focusing on MSSP providers, cloud security, and also updates and...
Securing the Edge in Cisco ACI with Garland Technology's EdgeLens
I’ve previously provided an introduction to Cisco ACI in terms of facilitating a next-generation data center by taking advanced of software defined networking. So if you haven’t read that post, it’s a great place to start. Abstraction is...
Decoding the User Experience with Accedian Network Monitoring
You’re the network IT person at a large firm on a Monday morning locked in a prison of unopened emails. You’ve barely taken a sip of coffee when your phone rings. It’s your boss, “My network isn’t working. It takes 40 extra seconds to open...
What is Driving the Need for Additional Network Monitoring?
Enterprise networks are evolving. They face different challenges today than just two or three years ago. Today’s IT teams must find a way to deal with more data, more connected devices, networks distributed over a greater geographic area,...
Unleash the Power of Packet Slicing and Time Stamping in your Network
In today’s environments with significant investment in security and monitoring tools, Garland Technology recognizes the need for a cost-effective solution that provides the flexibility and performance that networks today require. We have...
Cyber Security Threat Breakdown [MoviePass + Poshmark]
Here’s your monthly roundup of the latest hacks and data breaches around the world. In this monthly series, I’ll share information and updates on the most recent hacks that I saw in the news, including causes, resolutions, and what you can...
Network Visibility - The Rise of the Aggregation Layer
Sole reliance on SPAN ports for network visibility and monitoring has been on the decline for years. IT teams have realized the inherent limitations of SPAN ports and have shifted towards the traditional 3-tiered approach to network...
Do's and Dont's of Packet Acquisition
In a previous post I wrote about the basics of packet data acquisition, why they are the foundation to network performance management tools. Most networks require their NPM tools to analyze packets from multiple network segments....
If You Build It (An Infrastructure), They Will Come (Malicious Data)
Garland Technology and BluVector® are dedicated to sharing network connectivity best practices and inline security management, propagating why having reliable data in your network is incredibly important for security. BluVector, recently...
Aggregation in a High Density Fiber Network
High density networks can create infrastructure challenges related to figuring out how to ensure all network links are being analyzed by security and monitoring tools. This was the case with one major European telecommunications company....
Networking News: Cloud Monitoring + IoT Security
In this day and age, the networking world is constantly changing with discovered risks and issues from new technologies, monitoring and security measures in new cloud environments, and many more. With so much note-worthy news, here are...
An Introduction to Securing the Edge in Cisco ACI
Cisco ACI is a game changing approach to managing networks across major disruptions including virtualization, multiple active data centers, hybrid data centers, and private and public cloud. Cisco ACI enables significant advantages in...
Cyber Security Threat Breakdown [Slack + Bulgaria]
Here’s your monthly roundup of the latest hacks and data breaches around the world. In this monthly series, I’ll share information and updates on the most recent hacks that I saw in the news, including causes, resolutions, and what you can...
What is a Network TAP, Anyway?
Despite being in the technology industry, there are some things system security pros (or their bosses) just aren't familiar with. One of the questions we get at Garland is, "What is a network TAP, anyway?" The next question is typically,...
Is your Network Security Slowing you Down?
Measuring the Latency impact Created by NextGen Security Solutions As an IT professional, you are well aware of the challenges posed by network latency. Applications like audio and video delivery, bandwidth-sensitive mobile applications,...
Networking News: 5 Cybersecurity Basics + Cisco AI
In this day and age, the networking world is constantly changing with discovered risks and issues from new technologies, monitoring and security measures in new cloud environments, and many more. With so much note-worthy news, here are...
Understanding the Basics of Packet Data Acquisition
Packets are an essential source of data for network performance management (NPM) tools. They are the foundation of data truth that all network monitoring and security tools rely upon for analytics, forensics, threat detection, and...
Born in the USA: The Story of Garland Network TAPs
The network TAP is essential for network visibility within the data center, ensuring your network monitoring and security tools are getting 100% complete packet data. With the fourth of July among us, I thought it was a good time to share...
Network Visibility in Public Cloud Environments
By now everyone is aware of the importance of visibility into their production network. Without network visibility, it’s impossible to have a true understanding of what’s going on in your network, optimize your security and monitoring...
The Kryptonite of Network Latency
Aukua and Garland Technology have joined forces to combat the villainous issues connected with network latency! Garland’s Superpower: Supersonic Duplication Aukua’s Superpower: Telepathic Monitoring Their mission: To secure your network...
Cybersecurity Threat Breakdown [CBP + Evite]
With years of experience in the technology industry, headlines about cyber attacks and data breaches stand out to me. Here’s your monthly roundup of the latest hacks and data breaches around the world. In this monthly series, I’ll share...
Cisco Live 2019: Thoughts from Garland Technology
Cisco Live. San Diego, California. 30th anniversary. Sure boss, I’ll go! Last week I was part of the Garland Technology crew that attended Cisco Live 2019. Garland exhibited in the World of Solutions to talk to attendees about why Garland...
Network Visibility Fabric Design - Focus on the Core
We’ve previously talked about the importance of the access layer, aggregation layer and edge to a well-designed network visibility fabric. Tapped traffic from the access layer flows to the aggregation layer, where it’s collected,...
The Battle Of The Bandwidth
After an epic 15 year reign at number one, 10G tools begin their descent down the charts of network infrastructure, making way for the rise of “hot” 100G technology. Iconic sensations like big data infrastructure and the explosion of...
Network TAPs: The Ultimate Draft Pick for Your Security Defense Team
In every draft – whether it's fantasy or pro – the first pick is the most important. Often, it’s the foundation upon which the entire rest of the team is built. The same can be said for your security defense team. Firewalls, intrusion...
Networking News: IoT Risks + Network Monitoring in the Cloud Era
In this day and age, the networking world is constantly changing with discovered risks and issues from new technology, monitoring and security measures in new cloud environments and many more. With so much note-worthy news, here are...