Attackers move east-west
Once inside, adversaries pivot between systems. Lateral movement produces distinctive network patterns that NDR is built to surface.
Solutions · NDR
Network Detection & Response
See what endpoints cannot: suspicious flows, lateral movement, command-and-control traffic and anomalies across your network — including encrypted sessions.
What is NDR?
Network Detection and Response (NDR) monitors network traffic to detect malicious or anomalous activity that endpoint and log-based tools may miss. It analyses flow data and packet metadata to identify behaviour — scanning, lateral movement, beaconing, data staging and exfiltration — regardless of whether an attacker has endpoint tooling installed.
NDR is especially valuable in environments with unmanaged devices, OT/IoT segments, third-party connections and legacy systems where agents cannot be deployed. Network telemetry is the one vantage point attackers cannot easily remove.
Why it matters
Why network visibility still matters
Encryption and hybrid architectures have not eliminated the network — they have made it harder to see.
Agents cannot cover everything
IoT, OT, medical and third-party devices often cannot run endpoint agents. Network monitoring covers them anyway.
Command-and-control hides in plain sight
Beaconing, DNS tunnelling and domain-fronting blend into normal traffic. Behavioural analytics separate them from noise.
How it works
How Netralink NDR works
From raw traffic to prioritised detections with investigative context.
- 01
Visibility
Traffic is collected via network taps, SPAN ports or lightweight sensors across key internal and boundary segments.
- 02
Decode
Protocols are decoded and enriched — DNS, HTTP, TLS metadata, SMB, RDP and more — without breaking encryption.
- 03
Baseline
Normal communication patterns for hosts, users, services and segments are learned over time.
- 04
Detect
Behavioural analytics, threat signatures and rules identify deviations: new connections, unusual volumes, suspicious timing.
- 05
Investigate
Analysts reconstruct sessions, flows and timelines to confirm or dismiss a detection with evidence.
- 06
Respond
Coordinated containment with firewall, EDR, NAC and SOAR — blocking, isolating and segmenting as needed.
Capabilities
NDR capabilities
Network intelligence that complements endpoint and identity controls.
Traffic analytics
Deep inspection of flows, protocols and sessions across north-south and east-west traffic.
Lateral movement detection
Identify internal pivoting via SMB, RDP, WMI, PsExec and other movement techniques.
C2 and beaconing detection
Surface periodic callbacks, jitter patterns and known adversary infrastructure.
DNS security analytics
Detect tunnelling, DGA domains, malicious resolutions and data exfiltration over DNS.
Encrypted traffic analytics
Assess TLS metadata and behaviour without decryption where privacy or compliance prevents inspection.
Asset and service discovery
Maintain a live inventory of network assets, services and their normal communication patterns.
In practice
NDR use cases
Compromised host investigation
Determine what a host talked to, when, and whether data left the network.
Ransomware precursor detection
Identify reconnaissance, credential access and lateral movement before encryption starts.
OT / IoT visibility
Monitor segments where endpoint agents cannot be deployed.
Incident scoping
Establish the true perimeter of an intrusion using historical flow data and timelines.
Outcomes
Benefits
- Detection that does not depend on endpoint agents
- Evidence-grade network timelines for investigations
- Earlier detection of lateral movement and exfiltration
- Coverage for legacy, OT, IoT and third-party segments
- Complements EDR and SIEM instead of duplicating them
Comparison
NDR vs IDS vs IPS
Related technologies with different jobs.
Related technologies with different jobs.
| Aspect | NDR | IDS | IPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focus | Behaviour and response | Signature detection | Inline prevention |
| Data | Flows, metadata, behaviour | Packet signatures | Inline packet stream |
| Typical action | Detect, investigate, respond | Alert | Block inline |
| Strength | Unknown and evasive threats | Known threats | Stopping known threats in path |
FAQ
NDR — frequently asked questions
NDR (Network Detection and Response) is the practice of monitoring network traffic — flows, sessions and metadata — to detect malicious or anomalous behaviour, investigate it, and respond. It focuses on behaviour rather than signatures alone, so it can surface threats that evade static controls.
Sensors collect traffic from network taps or SPAN ports. The platform decodes protocols, baselines normal behaviour, and applies analytics to detect deviations such as lateral movement, beaconing or exfiltration. Confirmed detections feed investigation workflows and response actions.
Yes, in most environments. EDR covers managed endpoints; NDR covers everything else on the network — unmanaged devices, OT/IoT, third-party connections and traffic that endpoint agents never see. The two provide complementary coverage, and correlation between them is where XDR adds value.
NDR platforms analyse metadata and behaviour of encrypted traffic — certificate details, flow patterns, timing and volume — without decrypting it. Where policy and privacy allow, selective decryption can add deeper inspection.
Firewalls enforce policy at the perimeter and between zones. NDR detects behaviour inside permitted traffic: internal pivoting, compromised hosts calling command-and-control infrastructure, DNS tunnelling and anomalous data movement between systems.
Related
Explore related solutions
Next step
Put this capability to work
Discuss network detection & response for your environment with a Netralink security specialist — no obligation, no sales pressure.
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