SUNY's Binghamton Monitors Network with Lancope's StealthWatch

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 12/01/08

Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, is using StealthWatch from Lancope to help streamline network management, control, and security with visibility of network behavior. Binghamton has an IT network that spans 20,000 client endpoints and six geographic locations. After contending with worm propagation and other security threats that affected network performance, the university's network management team sought a way to increase visibility of network traffic and analyze network behavior for potential threats.

"We knew that the volume of new attacks and the vectors used were only going to increase, so we chose to stay ahead of the curve with a behavioral analysis system," said Jamie Arnold, senior network analyst. "I believe behavior and anomaly-based solutions will be most effective long term. StealthWatch was the only solution we tested that does not rely on canned signature-matching techniques to identify risky network traffic."

Prior to StealthWatch, Arnold and his team had to collect network traffic data from a variety of sources and then try to identify trends and patterns.

StealthWatch monitors network traffic data from network segments, log files, and packet captures. The application correlates security and operational data from routers, switches, intrusion prevention systems, and network access control (NAC) products such as Bradford Networks' Campus Manager. Working in concert, the two products continuously assess hosts responsible for disrupting network performance and quarantine offenders.

"StealthWatch is now the single point of reference when we're trying to resolve security challenges or observe new trends that may cause performance issues later on," said Arnold. "We can tailor the system reporting to include as much or as little data as we choose. Furthermore, StealthWatch is an integral part of the network access control."

Lancope has about 60 other customers in higher education, including Dartmouth College and Northern Illinois University. Binghamton has about 14,400 students.