Whether they're performing an analysis of an attack or observing the network traffic for large corporations, security professionals deal with a lot of data. Charged with protecting the electronic crown jewels, the task of sorting through the mountains of recorded information can seem daunting at times, but help appears to be on the horizon. New technologies, demonstrated at the Black Hat Briefings conference in Las Vegas, can parse large and complex logs or data files and generate visual information based on those logs or data that may be able to help security professionals find the proverbial needle in the haystack. [ For more on the events and revelations at the 2008 Black Hat and Defcon security conferences , check out InfoWorld's special report. ] Network traffic can be notoriously difficult to parse, and as the size of the network increases, the sheer volume of data that needs to be evaluated can be simply too much for a human mind to handle. To that end, a wide range of products -- from intrusion detection and intrusion prevention systems to firewalls that respond in real time to denial-of-service attacks -- serve the needs of IT workers responsible for maintaining the security of companies, governments, or other organizations. However, there has never been a good way for the people who operate these technologies to step back and see the problem from 30,000 feet. That may be changing. A "galactic" view of Internet traffic On ...
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