What is Packet Capture (PCAP)?

• Packet Capture Definition

  Packet Capture Definition

  Packet capture is a networking practice involving the interception of data packets travelling over a network. Once the packets are captured, they can be stored by IT teams for further analysis. The inspection of these packets allows IT teams to identify issues and solve network problems affecting daily operations.
• What is packet capture used for?

  What is packet capture used for?

  Packet capturing helps to analyze networks, identify network performance issues and manage network traffic. It allows IT teams to detect intrusion attempts, security issues, network misuse, packet loss, and network congestion. It enables network managers to capture data packets directly from the computer network. The process is known as packet sniffing.

  IT teams prefer using packet monitor to perform crucial tasks, such as:

  • Monitoring WAN utilization
  • Monitoring bandwidth and traffic volume
  • Tracking network usage
  • Isolating compromised systems
  • Demonstrating compliance
  • Detecting suspicious content
  • Identify rogue DHCP
• Importance of packet capture monitoring?

  Importance of packet capture monitoring?

  Packet capture enables teams to deal with complex network issues with ease and efficiency. Management of organizations' networks is daunting. It involves checking client IP addresses, DNS servers, and more following the standard tests to identify the root cause of the issues.

  Here’s when the packet capture system greatly helps. A packet monitoring tool can collect and analyze packet data and handle complex network issues quickly. It provides in-depth packet information such as source and destination of IP addresses, time of capture, protocol information, and more.
• Advantages of packet capture

  Advantages of packet capture

  Enhance your organization's security: Packet analysis helps in identifying security flaws, breaches, and more. It can detect intrusions, security incidents, and sudden spikes in network traffic.

  Identify data leaks: Packet analysis and monitoring help IT teams to understand data leakage points and identify the root cause of the issues.

  Locate packet loss: Packet capture monitoring enables IT teams to retrieve stolen, lost, or exfiltrated data packets by providing a series of events.

  Improve network troubleshooting: Packet capture monitoring provides full visibility into network resources that help network teams improve troubleshooting efforts.
• What is a PCAP file?

  What is a PCAP file?

  PCAP files are data files created using a program. These files contain packet data of a network and are used to analyze the network characteristics. They also contribute to controlling the network traffic and determining network status. Using PCAP files, teams can attend to detect network problems and resolve data communications using various programs.
• What are the different versions of PCAP files?

  What are the different versions of PCAP files?

  There are many versions of a PCAP file with its own set of capabilities and used cases. For example:

  • WinPcap: WinPcap file format is similar to a portable packet capture library designed specifically for Windows devices. 
  • Libpcap: Libpcap is an open-source C++ library Used by Mac OS and Linux devices to capture and filter packets. It’s mainly used by packet sniffing tools.
  • Npcap: Npcap is a packet sniffing library that supports other Windows devices. This library is known for its fast and secure functionalities.
  • PCAPng: Users can loopback packet capture injection and sniff loopback packets.
• How do you capture packets?

  How do you capture packets?

  Capturing and analyzing huge amounts of packets manually can be challenging. It’s difficult for IT teams to stop and analyze each packet traversing through the network.

  Using a packet capture tool can help automate the entire process and allow IT teams to capture and store packets to perform packet capture analysis. The packets can be stored on local or off-site storage to make it easier for IT teams to analyze them.

  Besides basic monitoring capabilities, the tool offers several features, such as:

  • Time stamping of packets arrived
  • Collection and parsing packet length, port number, TCP sequence numbers
  • Load and import past sessions of the saved capture file
  • Extract and export packet data into a single packet capture file
  • Real-time view of packets received
• Why should IT teams use network packet capture tools?

  Why should IT teams use network packet capture tools?

  Automatic identification of response: The tool helps to detect response time to determine performance issues automatically. This helps in improving the overall end-user experience.

  Monitor a huge number of applications instantly: IT teams can use a network packet capture tool to identify, analyze, inspect, and monitor network traffic. It can provide network performance metrics of different applications such as Skype and SQL server instantly. It can also be used to track data volume, transactions, and packet traffic.

  Spot abnormal spikes in traffic: Unusual traffic spike can be due to a faulty application or a security breach. Packet capture tool allows IT teams to identify the root cause of the issues by tracking network packets. Teams can also set alerts to get instant notifications about intrusion attempts or network issues.

  Improve network traffic analysis: These tools provide unique dashboards with detailed views of packet information, traffic issues, Time to First Byte, and risk levels.