“This tool is an analyst’s dream” – SC Magazine

Princeton, NJ, May 20, 2014 — NIKSUN® Inc., the world leader in real time and forensics-basedcybersecurity and network monitoring solutions, is pleased to announce that NIKSUN’s latest NetDetector/NetVCR Alpine has been awarded 5-stars by SC Magazine’s Forensics Product Review, calling the Alpine offering “an analyst’s dream” because of its intelligent ability to monitor traffic while also identifying anomalous traffic.

“We are pleased to receive another 5-star rating for our latest product release, an honor to the NIKSUN team and an excellent third-party validation for our customers,” said Dr. Parag Pruthi, NIKSUN Founder, Chairman, & CEO. “SC Magazine performs its product reviews in a real lab using a hands-on approach by reviewers who are knowledgeable on cyber issues.Their approach is not based on magical amalgamation of data supplied by paying clients and vendors but fact based on actual hands on testing and use as an end user. Such hands on reviews are far more valuable to customers and users than quadrants filled with opinions.”

Not only did SC Magazine give NIKSUN a 5-star review across the board, but also named the NetDetector/NetVCR as “lab approved,” which distinguishes NIKSUN as one of the very few vendors used in SC Magazine’s live network. “We recently experienced a SYN flood attack against our perimeter. While [the attack was] unsuccessful, we still wanted to know what we could learn about it. We can search the database on the Alpine for the source address and then reconstruct the attack. That is the NetVCR piece of the product. In this case, reconstructing meant examining the packets in detail. However, in the case of an internal user abusing internet resources by going to disallowed sites, for example, we can replay the user’s session from packets captured by the appliance,” the reviewers stated in the written review.

Unlike a SIEM, “Alpine generates its own data from packets that it sees moving past its interface. It then analyzes and can replay, as well as providing drill-down for lots of detail. In the case of the attack against our perimeter, we had visibility at the packet level so analyses can view the payload as well as the header or metadata,” SC Magazine reviews stated.

Reviewers also gave the thumbs up to the easy-to-use interface. “Once a user finds something of interest in the summary view, there are several other views available for deeper analysis. One of the chief issues in tools of this type is visualization. Because there is so much available data, views can become cluttered and difficult to figure out. Not so with Alpine. The approach NIKSUN has taken is a mix of the traditional listing by event and a more web-like UI,” reviewers said.

In the Strengths category, reviewers rated NIKSUN Alpine as a “Comprehensive, easy-to-use network forensic tool.” In the Weaknesses category reviewers said, “None that we found.” And the final verdict? “Regardless of the size of the organization, Alpine can help identify and analyze network attacks easily and effectively. Well worth attention. SC Lab Approved,” reviewers noted.

NIKSUN plans to showcase its latest offering of the NetDetector/NetVCR Alpine at its upcoming World Wide Security & Mobility Conference (WWSMC) in Princeton, NJ from June 25th— 27th. WWSMC ’14 brings together thought leaders and experts from different segments of the security and mobile ecosystem to discuss and examine new approaches to address today's ever-growing cybersecurity threats. The conference includes global industry leaders, security and mobility experts, government officials, and academics. To learn more about the World Wide Security and Mobility Conference (WWSMC), click here.

To see the full review, click here.

For more information, visit NIKSUN's website at www.niksun.com