ExtraHop System User Guide
About this guide
This guide provides information about the ExtraHop system for the ExtraHop Discover and Command appliances.
The purpose of this guide is to help users understand the ExtraHop system architecture and functionality as well as learn how to operate the controls, fields, and options available throughout the system.
Additional resources are available through the following links:
- See information about administrator features and functions for the ExtraHop Discover and Command appliances in the ExtraHop Admin UI Guide
- See the complete ExtraHop documentation set: https://docs.extrahop.com.
- See online training modules on the ExtraHop website: https://www.extrahop.com/go/training/.
Contact us
We value your feedback.
Please let us know how we can improve this document. Send your comments or suggestions to documentation@extrahop.com.
If you need additional help, please contact ExtraHop Support. at or visit the ExtraHop Customer Support Portal at https://customers.extrahop.com/.
Email: support@extrahop.com
Support Portal Website: https://customers.extrahop.com/
Telephone:
- 877-333-9872 (US)
- +44 (0)203 7016850 (EMEA)
- +65-31585513 (APAC)
Introduction to the ExtraHop system
The ExtraHop system provides a comprehensive network detection and response solution for security threats and IT operations. You can monitor how services and devices interact with each other and how transactions flow across the data link layer (L2) to the application layer (L7) in your network. You can also perform threat hunting to look for indicators of compromise within network traffic.
This guide explains how the ExtraHop system collects and analyzes your data and how the core system components and functionalities help you access detections, metrics, transactions, and packets about the traffic on your network. Each section also provides links to additional relevant resources about the feature.
Platform Architecture
The ExtraHop system is customized with modular components that combine to satisfy your unique environmental needs.
Solutions
- Reveal(x) Enterprise
- Reveal(x) Enterprise is a self-managed solution that comprises sensors,
consoles, packetstores, recordstores, and access to ExtraHop Cloud
Services.
- Reveal(x) 360
- Reveal(x) 360 is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that comprises
sensors and packetsores and includes a cloud-based recordstore, a console,
and access to ExtraHop Cloud Services. The type of sensors and packetstores
are determined by subscription level.
Components
Each solution offers a set of components based on your environmental needs: sensors, packetstores, recordstores, and a console for centralized management and unified data views.
- Packet sensors
- Packet sensors capture, store, and analyze metric data about your network. Multiple levels of data analysis, collection, and storage are available by sensor size. These sensors are available as physical, virtual, and cloud-based options in sizes that are based on your analysis needs.
- Flow sensors
- Flow sensors are available for Reveal(x) 360 Standard subscriptions only and exclusively collect VPC flow logs so that you can see traffic managed by AWS SaaS services.
- Packetstores
- Packetstores integrate with sensors and consoles to provide continuous packet capture and sufficient storage for deeper investigations and forensic needs. Packetstores can be deployed as standalone physical or virtual options and are included with the Ultra subscription for Reveal(x) 360.
- Recordstores
- Recordstores integrate with sensors and consoles to store transaction and flow records that can be queried from throughout the ExtraHop system. Recordstores can be deployed as standalone physical or virtual options, supported as third-party connections to Splunk or BiqQuery from Reveal(x) Enterprise, and are included in Premium and Ultra subscriptions for Reveal(x) 360.
- Consoles
- Consoles provide a browser-based interface that provides a command center
for all connected components. Consoles can be deployed as standalone virtual
or cloud-based options for Reveal(x) Enterprise and are included in
subscriptions for Reveal(x) 360.
The following table provides an overview of the options available for each solution.
-
Ā Reveal(x) Enterprise Reveal(x) 360 Ā Physical Virtual/Cloud Physical Virtual/Cloud Packet sensor Flow Sensor N/A N/A N/A EFC 1291v Packetstore Included with Ultra subscriptions
Recordstore N/A Included with Premium and Ultra subscriptions Console N/A N/A Included with all subscriptions
ExtraHop Cloud Services
Smart Sensor Analytics
The ExtraHop system offers a browser-based interface with tools that enable you to explore and visualize data, investigate findings in both top-down and bottom-up workflows, and customize how you collect, view, and share your network data. Advanced users can automate and script both administrative and user tasks through the ExtraHop REST API and customize data collection through the ExtraHop Trigger API, which is a JavaScript IDE tool.
At the core of the ExtraHop system is a smart sensor that captures, stores, and analyzes metric data about your networkāand offers different levels of data analysis, collection, and storage based on your needs. Sensors are provisioned with storage that supports 30 days of metric lookback. Note that actual lookback varies by traffic patterns, transaction rates, the number of endpoints, and the number of active protocols.
Consoles act as a command center with connections to multiple sensors, recordstores, and packetstores that are distributed across data centers and branch offices. All Reveal(x) 360 deployments include a console; Reveal(x) Enterprise can deploy virtual or cloud variations.
Consoles provide unified data views across all your sites and enable you to sync certain advanced configurations (such as triggers and alerts) and settings (tuning parameters, analysis priorities, and recordstores).
The following sections describe the major functional components of the ExtraHop system and how they work together.
Sensor Types
The type of sensor you deploy determines the type of data that is collected, stored, and analyzed.
Wire data
Packet sensors passively observe unstructured packets through a port mirror or tap and store the data in the local datastore. The packet data goes through real-time stream processing that transforms the packets into structured wire data through the following stages:
- TCP state machines are recreated to perform full-stream reassembly.
- Packets are collected and grouped into flows.
- The structured data is analyzed and processed in the following ways:
- Transactions are identified.
- Devices are automatically discovered and classified by their activity.
- Metrics are generated and associated with protocols and sources, and the metric data is then aggregated into metric cycles.
- As new metrics are generated and stored, and the datastore becomes full, the oldest existing metrics are overwritten according to the first-in first-out (FIFO) principle.
Flow data
A flow is a set of packets that are part of a single connection between two endpoints. Flow sensors are available for Reveal(x) 360 and offer continuous network visibility based on VPC flow logs to help secure AWS environments. VPC flow logs enable you to capture information about the IP traffic going to and from network interfaces in your VPC and are recorded as flow log records, which are log events that consist of fields that describe the traffic flow. This log data enables you to search for threats with advanced machine-learning detections.
Flow logs are ingested, deduplicated, and then grouped into flows. The flows are then enriched with data (such as MAC addresses) queried from AWS EC2 APIs.
The flows are then analyzed and processed in the following ways:
- Devices are automatically discovered and classified by their activity observed over specific ports.
- Basic L2-L4 metrics are generated and aggregated into metric cycles.
- ExFlow record types are generated and published.
Metrics, Records, and Packets
ExtraHop sensors collect and store multiple depths of network interaction as metrics. Metrics are aggregated observations about endpoint interactions over time. Packetstores collect and store the raw data transferred between two endpoints as packets. Recordstores collect and store records, which are structured information about transaction, message, and network flows.
You can view and query all of these interactions from individual sensors or from a console that is connected to a complex deployment of sensors, packetstores, and recordstores.
For example, when a client sends an HTTP request to a web server, here is what each data type contains:
- The packet contains the raw data that was sent and received in the interaction.
- The related record contains the time-stamped metadata about the interaction: when the request happened, the IP address of the client and server, the requested URI, any error messages.
- The related metric (HTTP Requests) contains an aggregate of that interaction with other observed interactions during the specified time period, such as how many requests occurred, how many of those requests were successful, how many clients sent requests, and how many servers received the requests.
Both metrics and records can be customized to extract and store specific metadata with JavaScript-based triggers. While the ExtraHop system has over 4600 built-in metrics, you might want to create a custom metric that collects and aggregates 404 errors from only critical web servers. And, you might want to maximize your record storage space by only collecting transactions that occurred over a suspicious port.
Device discovery
After a device is discovered, the ExtraHop system begins to collect metrics based on the analysis level configured for that device. You can Find a device by their MAC address, IP address, or name (such as a hostname observed from DNS traffic, NetBIOS name, Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) name, DHCP name, or a custom name that you assigned to the device).
The ExtraHop system can discover and track devices by their MAC address (L2 Discovery) or by their IP addresses (L3 Discovery). L2 Discovery offers the advantage of tracking metrics for a device even if the IP address is changed or reassigned through a DHCP request. By default, the ExtraHop system is configured for L2 Discovery.
Device IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are discovered from Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) messages, Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) responses, local broadcasts, or local subnet multicast traffic. The MAC address and IP address for devices appear in search results throughout the system with the device information.
L2 Discovery
In L2 Discovery, the ExtraHop system creates a device entry for every local MAC address discovered over the wire. IP addresses are mapped to the MAC address, but metrics are stored with the device MAC address even if the IP address changes.
IP addresses observed outside of locally-monitored broadcast domains are aggregated at one of the incoming routers in your network. If a device sends a DHCP request through a router acting as a DHCP relay agent, the ExtraHop system detects and maps the IP address to the device MAC address. If the IP address changes for the device with a subsequent request through the DHCP relay agent, the ExtraHop system updates its mapping and continues to keep track of the device metrics by the MAC address.
Both MAC address and IP address are discovered for the remote device.
If a DHCP relay agent is not configured, remote devices can be discovered by their IP addresses through Remote L3 Discovery.
L3 Discovery
In L3 Discovery, the ExtraHop system creates and links two entries for each local discovered device: an L2 parent entry with a MAC address and an L3 child entry with IP addresses and the MAC address.
Here are some important considerations about L3 discovery:
- If a router has proxy ARP enabled, the ExtraHop system creates an L3 device for each IP address that the router answers ARP requests for.
- If you have a proxy ARP configured in your network, the ExtraHop system might automatically discover remote devices.
- L2 metrics that cannot be associated with a particular L3 child device (for example, L2 broadcast traffic) are associated with the L2 parent device.
Remote L3 Discovery
If the ExtraHop system detects an IP address that does not have associated ARP or NDP traffic, that device is considered a remote device. Remote devices are not automatically discovered, but you can add a remote IP address range and discover devices that are outside of the local network. A device entry is created for each IP address that is observed within the remote IP address range. (Remote devices do not have L2 parent entries.)
Only the IP address is discovered for the remote device.
Here are some recommendations about when to configure Remote L3 Discovery:
- Your client devices are on a network segment that is not directly tapped.
- Your organization has a remote office without an on-site ExtraHop system but users at that site access central data center resources that are directly monitored by an ExtraHop system. The IP addresses at the remote site can be discovered as devices.
- A cloud service or other type of off-site service hosts your remote applications and has a known IP address range. The remote servers within this IP address range can be individually tracked.
VPN Discovery
VPN Discovery enables the ExtraHop system to correlate the private, RFC-1918 IP addresses assigned to VPN clients with their public, external IP addresses. This enriched visibility into north-south traffic reduces barriers when investigating security incidents and performance issues that involve external VPN clients. (This feature requires a VPN gateway that is manually assigned by the user.)Software frame deduplication
The ExtraHop system removes duplicate L2 and L3 frames and packets when metrics are collected and aggregated from your network activity by default. L2 deduplication removes identical Ethernet frames (where the Ethernet header and the entire IP packet must match); L3 deduplication removes TCP or UDP packets with identical IP ID fields on the same flow (where only the IP packet must match).
The ExtraHop system checks for duplicates and removes only the immediately-previous packet both on the flow (for L3 deduplication) or globally (for L2 deduplication) if the duplicate arrives within 1 millisecond of the original packet.
By default, the same packet traversing different VLANs is removed by L3 deduplication. In addition, packets must have the same length and the same IP ID, and TCP packets also must have the same TCP checksum.
L2 duplication usually only exists if the exact same packet is seen through the data feed, which is typically related to an issue with port mirroring. L3 duplication is often the result of mirroring the same traffic across multiple interfaces of the same router, which can show up as extraneous TCP retransmissions in the ExtraHop system.
The System Health page contains charts that display L2 and L3 duplicate packets that were removed by the ExtraHop system. Deduplication works across 10Gbps ports by default and across 1Gbps ports if software RSS is enabled. L3 deduplication currently is supported only for IPv4, not IPv6.
Threat Detection
The ExtraHop system offers both machine-learning and rules-based detections that identify active or potential threats, network weaknesses that are vulnerable to exploits, and suboptimal configurations that can degrade network performance.
Additionally, charts, visualizations, and device activity maps enable proactive threat hunting.
Detection Tuning
Reduce noise and surface only critical detections by adding details about your network that help identify known parameters such as trusted domains and vulnerability scanners.Additionally, you can create tuning rules that hide specific detections or participants and further reduce unwanted noise.
Network Locality
By default, any device with an RFC1918 IP address (included in a 10/8, 172.16/12, or 192.168/16 CIDR block) is classified on the system as an internal device.However, because some network environments include non-RFC1918 IP addresses as part of their internal network, you can change the internal or external classification for IP addresses from the Network Localities page.
Threat Intelligence
The ExtraHop system includes a curated threat intelligence feed that is updated through the cloud as new threats are discovered. You can also add threat collections from a third-party or through partner integrations with ExtraHop Reveal(x) 360.Threat Briefings
Threat briefings provide information about imminent threats that are targeting networks. Updated detections, targeted record and packet queries, and affected devices are presented as a starting point for your investigation, accessed from the Security Overview page.Integrations
Reveal(x) 360 provides several third-party integrations that can enhance detection and response management and provide better visibility into network traffic.- Microsoft Protocol Decryption
- Enable decryption of Microsoft protocol traffic and improve detection of security attacks within your Microsoft Windows environment. ExtraHop Reveal(x) 360 synchronizes encryption keys with Windows domain controllers to decrypt and analyze network traffic over protocols such as LDAP, RPC, SMB, and WSMan.
- CrowdStrike
- Import threat intelligence from CrowdStrike Falcon X into the ExtraHop system to detect and annotate indicators of compromise in your environment. You can also easily navigate from assets in the ExtraHop system that are running CrowdStrike to the CrowdStrike Falcon console.
- Microsoft 365 (Beta)
- Import Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory detections and events into the ExtraHop system. You can also monitor Microsoft 365 metrics in built-in dashboards and view risk event details in records.
- Splunk
- Export and view ExtraHop detections in your Splunk SIEM.
- QRadar
- Export and view ExtraHop detections in your QRadar SIEM.
Navigating the ExtraHop System
The ExtraHop system provides access to network activity data and detection details through a dynamic and highly customizable user interface.
This guide provides an overview of the global navigation and controls, fields, and options available throughout the system. See Introduction to the ExtraHop system to learn how the ExtraHop system collects and analyzes your data.
Supported browsers
The following browsers are compatible with all ExtraHop systems. Apply the accessibility and compatibility features provided by your browser to access content through assistive technology tools.
- Firefox
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Edge
- Safari
Important: | Internet Explorer 11 is no longer supported. We recommend that you install the latest version of any supported browser. |
Layout and menus
Global navigation elements are located at the top of the page and contain links to the main sections of the system. Within each section, the left pane contains links to specific pages or data.
The following figure shows both global and left pane navigation elements.
Here are definitions of each global navigation element:
- Overview pages
- Overview pages enable you to quickly evaluate the scope of suspicious activity on your
network, learn about protocol activity and device connections, and investigate inbound
and outbound traffic on your network.
- View the Security Overview for information about security detections on your network.
- View the Network Overview for information about active devices on your network.
- View the Perimeter Overview for information about traffic traveling in and out of your network.
- Dashboards
- Click Dashboards to view, create, or share dashboards for monitoring any aspect of your network or applications. System dashboards give you an instant view of the activity and potential security threats on your network.
- Alerts
- Click Alerts to view information about each alert generated during the time interval.
- Detections
- If your packet or flow sensor is connected to the ExtraHop Machine Learning Service,
the top level navigation shows the Detections menu. Click
Detections to view detections identified from your wire data.
You can access stored detections even if your sensor is disconnected from the Machine
Learning Service.
Note: Machine learning detections require a connection to ExtraHop Cloud Services. - Assets
- Click Assets to find any application, network, or device discovered by the ExtraHop system. You can view protocol metrics for your assets, active users, or network activity by protocol.
- Records
- If your ExtraHop system is configured with a recordstore, the top level navigation shows the Records menu. Click Records to query for all stored records for the current time interval. Records are structured information about transactions, messages, and network flows.
- Packets
- If your ExtraHop system is configured with a packetstore, the top level navigation shows the Packets menu. Click Packets to query for all stored packets for the current time interval.
- Global search field
- Type the name of any device hostname or IP address, application, or network to find a match on your sensor or console. If you have a connected recordstore, you can search for saved records. If you have a connected packetstore, you can search for packets.
- Help icon
- See help information for the page that you are currently viewing. To access the most current and comprehensive set of ExtraHop documentation, visit the ExtraHop Documentation website.
- System Settings icon
- Access system configuration options, such as Triggers, Alerts, Scheduled Reports, and Custom Devices. Click to view the ExtraHop system and version and view system notices.
- User option icon
- Log in and log out of your sensor or console, change your password, and access API options.
- Pane toggle
- Collapse or expand the left pane.
- Global Time Selector
- Change the time interval to view application and network activity that was observed by the ExtraHop system for a specific time period. The global time interval is applied to all metrics across the system and does not change as you navigate to different pages.
- Recent pages
- See a list of the most recent pages you visited in a drop-down menu and make a selection to go back to a previous page. Repeated pages are deduplicated and condensed to save space.
- Navigation path
- View where you are in the system and click a page name in the path to navigate back to that page.
- Command menu drop-down
- Click to access specific actions for the page you are viewing. For example, when you click Dashboards at the top of the page, the command menu provides actions for changing dashboard properties or creating a new dashboard.
Start analyzing data
Begin your data analysis journey with the ExtraHop system by following the basic workflows listed below. As you become familiar with the ExtraHop system, you can complete more advanced tasks, such as installing bundles and building triggers.
Here are some basic ways to navigate and work with the ExtraHop system to analyze network activity.
- Monitor metrics and investigate interesting data
- A good starting point is the Activity dashboard, which shows you a
summary of important metrics about application performance on your network. When you see
a spike in traffic, errors, or server processing time, you can interact with dashboard
data to drill down and identify which clients, servers, methods, or
other factors contributed to the unusual activity.
You can then continue performance monitoring or troubleshooting by creating a custom dashboard to track a set of interesting metrics and devices.
Check out the following walkthroughs to learn more about monitoring data in dashboards:
- Search for a specific device and investigate related metrics and transactions
- If you want to investigate a slow server, you can search for the server in the ExtraHop system by device name or IP
address and then investigate the server's activity on a protocol page. Was
there a spike in response errors or requests? Was server processing time too high or did
network latency affect the rate of data transfer? Click on different protocols on the
Devices page to investigate more metric data collected by the ExtraHop system. Drill down by
peer IP addresses to see which clients or applications the server talked to.
If your ExtraHop system is connected to a recordstore, you can investigate entire transactions that the server participated in by creating a record query.
Check out the following walkthroughs to learn more about exploring metrics and records:
- Get visibility into changes to your network by searching for protocol activity
- You can get a top-down view of your network by looking at built-in protocol groups. An
protocol group is a collection of devices automatically grouped together by the ExtraHop
system based on the protocol traffic observed over the wire. For example, you can find
new or decommissioned servers that are actively communicating over a protocol by creating an activity
map.
If you find a collection of devices that you want to continue monitoring, you can add a device tag or custom device name to make those devices easier to find in the ExtraHop system. You can also create a custom device group or a custom dashboard to monitor device group activity.
Advanced workflows for customizing your ExtraHop system
After becoming familiar with basic workflows, you can customize your ExtraHop system by setting up alert notifications, creating custom metrics, or installing bundles.
- Set up alerts
- Alerts track specified metrics to notify you of traffic deviations that might indicate an issue with a network device. Configure a threshold alert to notify you when a monitored metric crosses a defined value. Configure a trend alert to notify you when a monitored metric deviates from the normal trends observed by the system.
- Install a bundle to enhance ExtraHop features and integrations
- Bundles are a saved set of system configurations that can
be uploaded to an ExtraHop system. Check out the following popular bundles:
Install a bundle on your ExtraHop system, or create a bundle that you can share with others.
- Build a trigger to create custom metrics and applications
- Triggers are custom scripts
that perform an action upon a pre-defined event. Triggers require planning to make sure
a trigger doesn't negatively impact system performance.
Check out the following walkthroughs to learn more about exploring metrics and records:
Time intervals
The Time Selector is displayed in the top-left corner of the navigation bar and controls the global time interval for metrics and detections displayed in the ExtraHop system.
Here are some considerations about time intervals:
- The Time Selector enables you to select a relative global time interval, such as the last day, or set a custom time range.
- The selected time interval stays the same, whether viewing metrics in a dashboard or investigating detections, until you change the interval or navigate to a page with a preset time interval, such as detection details or threat briefings.
- If a relative time interval is selected when you log out, the ExtraHop system defaults to that relative time interval when you log back in.
- If a custom time range is selected when you log out, the ExtraHop system defaults to the last relative time interval you viewed during the previous login session.
- You can access the five most recent unique time intervals from the History tab of the Time Selector.
- The time interval is included at the end of the URL in your browser. To share a link with others that maintains a specific time interval, copy the entire URL. To maintain a specific time interval after logging out of the ExtraHop system, bookmark the URL.
- The time interval associated with the collection and presentation of network data is determined by your local NTP server by default. You can change the system time in the ExtraHop system from the Administration settings. For more information, see Configure the system time in the ExtraHop Administrators Guide.
Change the time interval
- Click the time interval in the upper left corner of the page (for example Last 30 minutes).
-
Select from the following interval options:
- A preset time interval (such as Last 30 minutes, Last 6 hours, Last day, or Last week).
- A custom unit of time.
- A custom time range. Click a day to specify the start date for the range. One click will specify a single day. Clicking another day will specify the end date for the range.
- Compare metric deltas from two different time intervals.
- Click Save.
Tip: | You can also set the time interval from the History tab by selecting from up to five recent time intervals set in a previous login session. |
View the latest data for a time interval
Pages that display monitored metric data, such as dashboards and protocol pages, are continuously updated to display the latest data for the selected time interval.
Detail metrics pages, detections, records, packets, and alerts are reloaded on request by
clicking the refresh data icon at the top left corner of the page.
Change chart data granularity
The ExtraHop system stores metrics in 30-second buckets of time. Metric data are then aggregated or rolled up into additional five-minute and one-hour buckets. Aggregating data helps to limit the number of data points rendered on a time-series chart so the granularity of data is easier to interpret. The time interval you select determines the best aggregation, or roll up, of data to display in a chart for the period of time you are viewing.
For example, if you select a large time interval, such as one week, metric data is aggregated into one-hour roll ups. On the x-axis of a line chart, you see a data point for every hour instead of a data point for every 30 seconds. If you want to increase the level of granularity, you can zoom in on a chart or change the time interval.
The ExtraHop system includes built-in high-precision metrics with 1-second roll ups, which are the Network Bytes and Network Packets metrics. These metrics are associated with a device or network capture source. For more information on how to view these metrics in a chart, see Display the maximum rate in a chart.
The ExtraHop system also includes built-in metrics for identifying the single busiest millisecond of traffic within a 1-second roll up. These metrics, which are Maximum Network Bytes per Millisecond and Maximum Packets per Millisecond, are associated with a network capture source and help you detect microbursts. Microbursts are rapid bursts of traffic that occur within milliseconds.
The following table provides information about how data is aggregated based on time interval.
Time Interval | Aggregation Roll Up (if available) | Notes |
---|---|---|
Less than six minutes | 1-second | A 1-second roll up is only available for custom metrics and for the following
built-in metrics:
|
120 minutes or less | 30-second | If a 30-second roll up is not available, a 5-minute or 60-minute roll up displays. |
Between 121 minutes and 24 hours | 5-minute | If 5-minute roll up is not available, a 60-minute roll up displays. |
Greater than 24 hours | 60-minute | ā |
Note: | If you have an extended datastore that is configured for 24-hour metrics, a specified time interval of 30 days or longer displays a 24-hour aggregation roll up. |
Zoom in on a custom time range
You can click-and-drag across a chart to zoom in on interesting metric activity. This custom time range is then applied across the ExtraHop system, which is useful for investigating other metric activity that occurred at the same time.
Zooming in on a time range is only available in charts with an x- and y-axis, such as line, area, candlestick, and histogram charts.
Freeze the time interval to create a custom time range
If you see interesting data in an activity map, dashboard, or protocol page, you can freeze the time interval to instantly create a custom time range. Freezing the time interval is useful for creating links that you can share with others, and for investigating related metric activity that occurred at the same time.
Overview pages
Overview pages enable you to quickly evaluate the scope of suspicious activity on your network, learn about protocol activity and device connections, and investigate inbound and outbound traffic on your network.
- View the Security Overview for information about security detections on your network.
- View the Network Overview for information about active devices on your network.
- View the Perimeter Overview for information about traffic traveling in and out of your network.
Security Overview
The Security Overview displays several charts that highlight data from different perspectives about detections. These charts can help you evaluate the scope of security risks, launch investigations into unusual activity, and mitigate security threats. Detections are analyzed every 30 seconds or every hour, depending on the metric.
- Site Selector
- Click the site selector at the top of the page to view data for one or more sites in your
environment. View combined traffic across your networks or focus on a single site to help you
quickly find device data.
The site selector indicates which sites are flow sensors and when all or some sites are offline. Because data is not available from offline sites, the charts and device pages associated with offline sites might not show data or might only show limited data. The site selector is available from consoles only.
- Executive Report
- Click Generate Executive Report to create a PDF file. The Executive Report provides a summary of the top detections and risks to your network from the last week. The Executive Report only includes information for the selected sites.
- Open Detections
- This chart shows you a list of detections with a status other than Closed, sorted by highest risk. Click a detection to view open detections of the selected detection type. Each detection card summarizes what caused the detection; click the detection name to open the detection detail page.
- Detection Types
- This count chart shows you the number of distinct detection types that occurred during the selected time interval. By changing the time interval, you can see how many detection types occurred during that time. Click the number to open the Detections page filtered to show detections for each type.
- Detections by Attack Category
- This chart provides a quick way to see the types of attacks your network might be at risk for and displays the number of detections that occurred in each category during the selected time interval. Actions on Objective detections are listed by type to help you prioritize the most severe detections. Click any number to open a filtered view of detections that match the selected attack category.
- Detections by Operations Category
- This count chart shows you the total number of detections in three major Operations categories: Hardening, Caution, and Performance. Click any number to open a filtered view of detections that match the selected operations category.
- Top Offenders
- This chart shows the top 20 devices or endpoints that acted as offenders in one or more
detections. The ExtraHop system considers the number of distinct attack categories and
detection types and the risk scores of the detections associated with each device to determine
which devices are considered top offenders.
The size of the device role icon indicates the number of distinct detection types and the position of the icon indicates the number of distinct attack categories. Click a role icon to view more information about the attack categories and detection types associated with the device. Click the device name to view device properties.
Learn more about network security with the Security dashboard.
Threat briefings
Threat briefings provide cloud-updated guidance about industry-wide security events. Learn more about threat briefings.
Network Overview
The Network Overview displays the active devices on your network, how they are communicating, and trends in important metrics. The Network Overview refreshes activity map and network health indicator data every minute.
- Site Selector
- Click the site selector at the top of the page to view data for one or more sites in your environment. View combined traffic across your networks or focus on a single site to help you quickly find device data. The site selector indicates when all or some sites are offline. Because data is not available from offline sites, the charts and device pages associated with offline sites might not show data or might only show limited data. The site selector is available from a console.
- Executive Report
- Click Generate Executive Report to create a PDF file. The Executive Report provides a summary of the top detections and risks to your network from the last week. The Executive Report only includes information for the selected sites.
- Active Devices
- This count chart shows you the total number of devices that have been discovered by your ExtraHop system. Click the number to view a list of all discovered devices. The percentage shows you the rate of change for the selected time interval.
- New Devices
- This count chart shows you how many devices have been discovered within the past five days. Click the number to view a list of all of these devices.
Activity maps
An activity map cycles through the following protocols each minute when activity is detected:
- CIFS
- Database (DB)
- DNS
- FTP
- HTTP
- LDAP
- SSH
- SSL
- Telnet
Here are some ways you can interact with the activity map:
- Click the protocol name to open the activity map in a view that enables you to add steps and group filters. You can then save your modified activity map to revisit.
- Click the arrows around the protocol name to cycle through the available protocols. Protocols without activity in the specified time interval do not display.
- Click controls from the lower right corner of the activity map to pause and resume cycling, toggle between 2D and 3D visualization, and to zoom in and out of the map.
- Hover over a circle to see device labels and highlight device connections.
- Click a circle and then click the device name to view a protocol page for the device.
Learn more about navigating activity maps.
Network health indicators
Network health indicators show you general trends related to network and security health. Network health indicators might signal weaknesses or issues in network performance or potentially suspicious activity.
Each network health indicator displays the percentage of change in network activity compared to the previous time interval. Metrics are listed in descending order, by percentage of greatest change to least. Network health indicators with no activity during the specified time interval are not displayed.
Depending on the type of network activity and the amount of change, you can launch an investigation by clicking the metric title to drill down to a detail page. You can then investigate which factors are contributing to the activity.
For example, click the title, such as Weak Ciphers Sessions. A detail page appears with all the clients, servers, certificates, and SNIs that were associated with weak cipher sessions, as shown in the following figure.
The following network health indicators can appear on the Network Overview page.
- DNS - Address Mapping Record Queries
- This network health indicator shows you the number of DNS requests received by
DNS servers that included the A record type. An A record maps a domain name to
the IP address (IPv4) of the domain host. Click the metric title to see which
clients sent the most requests.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- While DNS address mapping queries are normal, large or sudden increases can be an indicator of potential data exfiltration or a DNS tunnel. A DNS tunnel is a technique that encodes data into DNS queries for data exfiltration or command and control attacks. For example, sensitive data can be encoded into the hostname within the A record. You can view the A record by clicking the records icon next to a client that sent a high number of DNS requests.
- DNS - FTP Responses
- This network health indicator shows you the number of FTP responses sent by DNS
servers. Click the metric title to see which servers sent the highest number of
FTP responses.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- The primary activity for DNS servers should be to resolve hostnames instead of sending files over FTP. Attackers can exploit weaknesses in DNS servers, which often go undetected. If there is an increasing number of FTP data transfer by DNS servers, investigate this suspicious activity.
- DNS - Request Timeouts
- This network health indicator shows you the number of timeouts that occurred
after repeated unanswered DNS query requests were sent from clients. Click the
metric title to see which clients were affected and which servers were not responding.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- DNS can be a bottleneck in your network if hostname resolution cannot take place. A spike, or large increase in request timeouts, is disruptive to your network in general, and can also be an indicator of a distributed denial of service (DDoS).
- DNS - Requests with Suspicious Hosts
- This network health indicator shows you the number of DNS requests that included
a suspicious hostname, according to threat intelligence applied to your ExtraHop
Reveal(x) system. Click the metric title to see which hosts are considered
suspicious. Click the red camera icon to see threat intelligence details about the hostname.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- Threat intelligence provides known data about suspicious IP addresses, hostnames, and URIs. You should always investigate indicators of compromise that are identified by threat intelligence. You can view information about the entire DNS transaction by clicking the records icon next to a suspicious host query.
- DNS - Text Record Queries
- This network health indicator shows you the number of DNS requests received by
DNS servers that included the TXT record type. A TXT record associates
human-readable text with a host. Click the metric title to see which client sent
the most DNS requests with the TXT record type.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- DNS queries that include TXT records are typically uncommon, and large increases can be an indicator of a potential DNS tunnel. A DNS tunnel is a technique that encodes data into DNS queries for data exfiltration or command and control attacks. For example, malware or sensitive data can be encoded into the TXT record. You can view the TXT record by clicking the records icon next to a client that sent a high number of DNS requests.
- HTTP - 404 Not Found Error
- This network health indicator shows you the number of HTTP responses that
included the 404 (Not Found) status code. Click the metric title to see which
URIs were associated with the 404 status code.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- While a certain number of 404 errors might be considered normal, a large increase in this client-side error could indicate a potential web directory scan. Attackers rely on information about the underlying web server and associated components that are returned in the HTTP 404 status code.
- HTTP - 500 Server Errors
- This network health indicator shows you the number of HTTP responses sent by
servers that contained the 500 (Server Error) status code. Click the metric
title to see which URIs were associated with the 500 status code.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- A large or sudden increase in this server-side error could indicate a potential web directory scan. Web penetration tools deployed by attackers rely on information about the underlying web server and associated components that are returned in the HTTP 500 status code.
- HTTP - Requests with Suspicious Hosts
- This network health indicator shows you the number of HTTP requests that
included a suspicious hostname, according to threat intelligence found in your
ExtraHop Reveal(x) system. Click the metric title to see which hosts are
considered suspicious. Click the red camera icon to see related threat
intelligence details about the host.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- Threat intelligence provides known data about suspicious IP addresses, hostnames, and URIs. You should always investigate indicators of compromise that are identified by threat intelligence. You can view information about the entire HTTP transaction by clicking the records icon next to a suspicious host.
- HTTP - Requests with Suspicious URIs
- This network health indicator shows you the number of HTTP requests that
included a suspicious URI, according to threat intelligence found in your
ExtraHop Reveal(x) system. Click the metric title to see which URIs are
considered suspicious. Click the red camera icon to see related threat
intelligence details about the URI.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- Threat intelligence provides known data about suspicious IP addresses, hostnames, and URIs. You should always investigate indicators of compromise that are identified by threat intelligence. You can view information about the entire HTTP transaction by clicking the records icon next to a suspicious URI.
- SSL - Expired Certificate Sessions
- This network health indicator shows you the number of TLS/SSL sessions that were
established with an expired certificate. Click the metric title to see which
expired certificates had the most sessions.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- Certificate authorities add expiration dates to certificates, which are required for establishing a secure TLS or SSL session. Sessions established with expired certificates could indicate that servers have certificate verification disabled, or that users ignored browser warnings when establishing the session. This type of activity increases the vulnerability of devices to man-in-the-middle attacks. Consider configuring your web servers to remove expired certificates.
- SSL - Insecure SSLv3 Protocol Sessions
- This network health indicator tells you the number of connections on your
network that were established with SSL version 3.0. Click the metric title to
see a list of servers and clients with SSLv3 sessions.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- Known vulnerabilities, such as BEAST and POODLE, are associated with SSLv3. If you have a high number of SSLv3 sessions, consider configuring servers to support the latest version of TLS.
- SSL - Insecure TLS 1.0 Protocol Sessions
- This network health indicator tells you the number of connections on your
network that were established with TLS version 1.0. Click the metric title to
see a list of servers and clients with TLS 1.0 sessions.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- Known vulnerabilities, such as BEAST and POODLE, are associated with TLS 1.0. If you have a high number of TLS 1.0 sessions, consider configuring servers to support the latest version of TLS.
- SSL - Self-signed Sessions
- This network health indicator shows you the number of TLS/SSL sessions that were
established with self-signed certificates. Click the metric title to see which
clients were associated with self-signed certificate sessions.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- Self-signed certificates are not issued or verified by a certificate authority. The presence of self-signed certificates might indicate that software on your systems is not validating certificates, making your network vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. A sudden or large increase in sessions with self-signed certificates could also indicate that an attacker is communicating with command and control servers.
- SSL - Weak Cipher Sessions
- This network health indicator shows you the number of the number of TLS/SSL
sessions that were established with weak ciphers. Click the metric title to see
which clients are associated with weak ciphers.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- A cipher suite is a set of encryption algorithms that help secure a TLS/SSL connection. Algorithms within a cipher suite that are associated with known vulnerabilities are considered weak. You can view the cipher suite by clicking the records icon next to a client. Consider configuring your web servers to remove weak ciphers.
- TCP - Suspicious TCP Connections
- This network health indicator shows you the number of the number of outbound
connections to suspicious IP addresses, according to threat intelligence found
in your ExtraHop Reveal(x) system. Click the metric title to see which IP
addresses are considered suspicious. Click the red camera icon to see related threat
intelligence details about the IP address.
- Why is this metric a security health indicator?
- Threat intelligence provides known data about suspicious IP addresses, hostnames, and URIs. You should always investigate indicators of compromise that are identified by threat intelligence.
Learn more about your network with the Network dashboard.
Perimeter Overview
The Perimeter Overview displays charts and interactive visualizations that help you monitor traffic that is entering and leaving your network through connections with external endpoints.
- Site Selector
- Click the site selector at the top of the page to view data for one or more sites in your environment. View combined traffic across your networks or focus on a single site to help you quickly find device data. The site selector indicates when all or some sites are offline. Because data is not available from offline sites, the charts and device pages associated with offline sites might not show data or might only show limited data. The site selector is only available from a console.
- Executive Report
- Click Generate Executive Report to create a PDF file. The Executive Report provides a summary of the top detections and risks to your network from the last week. The Executive Report only includes information for the selected sites.
- Internal Endpoints Accepting Inbound Connections
-
This count chart displays the number of internal endpoints that accepted inbound connections from external endpoints during the selected time interval. Click the chart to open a filtered view of these conversations.
- Suspicious Inbound Connections
- This count chart displays the number of connections that were initiated by suspicious external endpoints. ExtraHop identifies suspicious endpoints through threat intelligence data. Click the chart to open a filtered view of these conversations.
- Suspicious Outbound Connections
- This count chart displays the number of connections that internal endpoints initiated with suspicious external endpoints. ExtraHop identifies suspicious endpoints through threat intelligence data. Click the chart to open a filtered view of these conversations.
- Total External Traffic
- This chart shows the rate that data is moving outbound and inbound from connections with external endpoints. Click the Inbound Traffic or Outbound Traffic data label to access menu options to create a new chart, search for related records, or drill down by conversation.
Halo visualization
The halo visualization provides three views of your network connections to external endpoints: Cloud Services, Countries, and Large Uploads.
External endpoints appear on the outer ring with connections to internal endpoints and appear as circles in the middle of the visualization. These visualizations enable you to prioritize your investigation for connections marked with high-risk detections or for high-value devices.
To help identify high-traffic endpoints, inner circles and outer rings increase in size as traffic volume increases. In some cases, the size of inner circles and outer ring segments might be increased for readability. Click an endpoint to display precise traffic information.
Click Cloud Services to view connections between internal endpoints and cloud service providers. Cloud service providers and the amount of sent or received data appear in the information panel to the right. You can toggle between views that show Bytes Out to providers and Bytes In to your network.
Click Countries to view connections between internal endpoints and countries. The connections are broken down by the geographic location of the external endpoint. Countries and the amount of sent or received data appear in the information panel to the right. You can toggle between views that show Bytes Out to countries and Bytes In to your network.
Click Large Uploads to view connections between internal and external endpoints where over 1 MB of data was transferred in a single transmission out of your network to an external endpoint. External endpoints and the amount of uploaded data appear in the information panel to the right.
- Hover over endpoints or connections to view available hostnames and IP addresses.
- Click endpoints or connections to hold focus and display precise traffic information and links for your selection in the information panel to the right.
- Click or hover an internal endpoint in the information panel to view device properties and access links to associated information such as detections, records, or packets.
- Adjust the time interval to view connections at specified times, such as unexpected activity during evenings or weekends.
Dashboards
Dashboards are an effective tool for monitoring high-priority network traffic or troubleshooting issues because they consolidate multiple metric charts into a central location where you can investigate and share data. You can also add text boxes, formatted through Markdown, to provide content for stakeholders.
Dashboards and collections are located in the dashboard dock.
Click Collections to display all of the dashboard collections you own or that have been shared with you. The number of dashboards in each collection is displayed. Click the collection name to view the owner, who the collection is shared with, and the list of dashboards in the collection.
Only the collection owner can modify or delete a collection. However, because dashboards can be added to multiple collections, you can create a collection and share it with other users and groups.
Click Dashboards to display an alphabetized list of all of the dashboards that you own or that have been shared with you, including dashboards shared through a collection. The owner of each dashboard is displayed. An icon next to the owner name indicates that the dashboard was shared with you.
Creating dashboards
If you want to monitor specific metrics or custom metrics, you can create a custom dashboard. Custom dashboards are stored separately for each user that accesses the ExtraHop system. After you build a custom dashboard, you can share it with other ExtraHop users.
There are several ways to create your own dashboard:
- Create a custom dashboard or create a dashboard with dynamic sources from scratch
- Copy an existing dashboard, and then customize it
- Copy an existing chart, and then save it to a new dashboard
New dashboards are opened in Edit Layout mode, which enables you to add, arrange, and delete components within the dashboard. After creating a dashboard, you can complete the following tasks:
Click the command menu in the upper right corner of the page to edit the dashboard properties or delete the dashboard.
Note: | You cannot recover a deleted dashboard. When deleting user accounts, ExtraHop administrators can transfer dashboard ownership to another system user. Otherwise, all custom dashboards associated with the user account are also deleted. To preserve dashboards, make a copy before the account is deleted. |
Learn how to monitor your network by completing a dashboard walkthrough.
Viewing dashboards
Dashboards are composed of chart widgets, alert widgets, and text box widgets that can present a concise view about critical systems or about systems managed by a particular team.
Click within a chart to interact with the metric data:
- Click a chart title to view a list of metric sources and menu options.
- Click a metric label to drill down and investigate by a metric detail.
- Click a metric label and click Hold Focus to display only that metric in the chart.
- Click a chart title or a metric label and then click Description to learn about the source metric.
- Click a detection marker to navigate to the detection detail page
Change the time selector to observe data changes over time:
Export and share dashboard data
By default, all custom dashboards are private and no other ExtraHop users can view or edit your dashboard.
Share your dashboard to grant view or edit permission to other ExtraHop users and groups, or share a collection to grant view-only permission to multiple dashboards.
You can only modify a shared dashboard if the owner granted you edit permission. However, you can copy and customize a shared dashboard without edit permission.
Export data by individual chart or by the entire dashboard:
- To export individual chart data, click the chart title and select one of the following options from the drop-down menu: Export to CSV or Export to Excel.
- To present or export the entire dashboard, click the command menu in the upper right corner of the page and select one of the following options: Presentation Mode, Export to PDF or Scheduled Reports (consoles only).
System dashboards
The ExtraHop system provides the following built-in dashboards that display common protocol activity about the general behavior and health of your network.
System dashboards are located in the default System Dashboards collection in the dashboard dock and cannot be added to another collection. System dashboards can be viewed by any user except for restricted users.
- Activity dashboard
- Find top-talkers by application (L7) protocols and view recent alerts. For more information about charts in this dashboard, see Activity dashboard.
- Network dashboard
- Identify traffic latency and bottlenecks over the data link (L2), network (L3), and transport (L4) layers. For more information about charts in this dashboard, see Network dashboard.
- Security dashboard (ExtraHop Reveal(x) only)
- Monitor general information about potential security threats on your network. For more information about charts in this dashboard, see Security dashboard.
- System Health dashboard
- Ensure that your ExtraHop system is running as expected, troubleshoot issues, and assess areas that are affecting performance. For more information about charts in this dashboard, see System Health dashboard.
Activity dashboard
Monitor general information about application activity and performance from the transport through the application layers (L4 - L7) on your network.
The Activity dashboard is a built-in, system dashboard, and you cannot edit, delete, or add system dashboards to a collection. However, you can copy a chart from a system dashboard and add it to a custom dashboard, or you can make a copy of the dashboard and edit it to monitor metrics that are relevant to you.
Each chart in the Activity dashboard contains visualizations of protocol metric data, organized by region. The following information summarizes each region and its charts.
- Traffic Overview
- Determine whether traffic bottlenecks are related to a specific application protocol or
network latency. The Traffic Overview region contains the following charts:
Network Packets by L7 Protocol Avg Rate chart: Find the protocol that has the highest volume of packet transmissions over the application layer (L7) during the selected time interval.
All Activity Network Round Trip Time: The 95th percentile line shows you the upper range of the time that it took for packets to traverse the network. If this value is over 250ms, then network issues could be slowing down application performance. Round trip time is a measurement of the time between when a client or server sent a packet and received an acknowledgment.
Alerts: View up to 40 of the latest alerts that were generated, and their severity levels. Alerts are user-configured conditions that establish baseline values for specific protocol metrics.
- Active Protocols
-
Determine how application performance is affected by the protocols that are actively communicating on the ExtraHop system. For example, you can quickly glance at charts that display server processing times and the ratio of errors to responses per protocol.
There is a chart for each active protocol. If you do not see a protocol you were expecting, applications might be not communicating over that protocol for the selected time interval.
-
For more information about protocols and to view metric definitions, see the ExtraHop Protocol Metrics Reference.
Note: | From a console, you can display the Activity dashboard for each connected site. The site name appears in the navigation bar; click the down arrow next to the name to pivot the display to other sites. |
Network dashboard
Monitor how effectively data is transmitted over the data link, network, and transport (L2 - L4) layers.
The Network dashboard is a built-in, system dashboard, and you cannot edit, delete, or add a system dashboard to a collection. However, you can copy a chart from a system dashboard and add it to a custom dashboard, or you can make a copy of the dashboard and edit it to monitor metrics that are relevant to you.
Each chart in the Network dashboard contains visualizations of network metric data, organized by region. The following information summarizes each region.
- Network L2 Metrics
- Monitor the throughput rates over the data link (L2) layer by bits and packets, and monitor the types of frames transmitted. You can also determine how much data is sent to receivers by unicast, broadcast, or multicast distribution.
- Network L4 Metrics
- Monitor data transfer latency over the transport layer (L4). View TCP activity through connection, request, and response metrics. This data can indicate how effectively data is sent and received across the transport layer in your network.
- Network Performance
- Monitor how network performance is affecting applications. View overall network throughput by reviewing the throughput per application protocol and the magnitude of high TCP round trip times.
- Network L3 Metrics
- View data throughput at the network layer (L3) and see packets and traffic by TCP/IP protocols.
- DSCP
- View a breakdown of packets and traffic by Differentiated Services code points, which is part of the DiffServ network architecture. Every IP packet contains a field to express the priority of how the packet should be handled, which is called differentiated services. The values for the priorities are called code points.
- Multicast Groups
- View traffic that is sent to multiple receivers in a single transmission, and see packets and traffic by each receiver group. Multicast traffic on a network is organized into groups based on destination addresses.
Note: | From a console, you can display the Network dashboard for each connected site. The site name appears in the navigation bar; click the down arrow next to the name to pivot the display to other sites. |
Security dashboard
Monitor general information about potential security threats on your network.
The Security dashboard is a built-in, system dashboard, and you cannot edit, delete, or add a system dashboard to a collection. However, you can copy a chart from a system dashboard and add it to a custom dashboard, or you can make a copy of the dashboard and edit it to monitor metrics that are relevant to you.
Each chart in the Security dashboard contains visualizations of protocol metric data, organized by region. The following information summarizes each region and its charts.
- Security Overview
- Click the links to visit the Security
Overview page, which can help you evaluate the scope of a suspicious activity on
your network. The Security Overview page dynamically displays high-risk detections,
trending security metrics, and rotating activity maps that display network activity by
protocol.
Note: Machine learning detections require a connection to ExtraHop Cloud Services. - Alerts
- See which alerts were issued most recently in your environment. For more information about configuring and interpreting alerts, see Alerts.
- Threat Intelligence
- See the number of connections and transactions that contain suspicious hostnames, IP
addresses, or URIs found in threat
intelligence. Click a blue metric value or metric name in the legend to drill
down on a suspicious metric. A detail page appears that displays a red camera icon next to the suspicious object. Click
the red camera icon to learn about the threat intelligence source.
Note: Threat intelligence metrics display a zero value for one or more of the following reasons: - Your ExtraHop Reveal(x) subscription does not include threat intelligence.
- You have not enabled threat intelligence for your ExtraHop Reveal(x) system.
- You have not directly uploaded custom threat collections to your sensors. Contact ExtraHop Support for help uploading a custom threat collection to you ExtraHop-managed sensors.
- No suspicious objects were found.
- SSL - Weak Ciphers
- See the number of active SSL sessions with weak cipher suites on your network. You can also see which clients and servers are participating in those sessions along with which cipher suites those sessions are encrypted with. DES, 3DES, MD5, RC4, null, anonymous, and export cipher suites are considered to be weak because they include an encryption algorithm that is known to be vulnerable. Data encrypted with a weak cipher suite is potentially insecure.
- SSL - Certificates
- See which SSL certificates in your network are self-signed, wildcard, expired, and
expiring soon. Self-signed certificates are signed by the entity that issues the
certificate, rather than a trusted certificate authority. Although self-signed
certificates are cheaper than certificates issued by a certificate authority, they are
also vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
A wildcard certificate applies to all first-level subdomains of a given domain name. For example, the wildcard certificate *.company.com secures www.company.com, docs.company.com, and customer.company.com. Although wildcard certificates are cheaper than individual certificates, wildcard certificates create a greater risk if they are compromised because they can apply to any number of domains.
- Vulnerability Scans
- See which devices are scanning applications and systems on your network to search for weaknesses and potential targets, such as high-value devices. In the left chart, you can identify which devices are sending the most scan requests, which are HTTP requests associated with known scanner activity. In the right chart, you can see which user-agents are associated with the scan requests. The user-agent can help you determine if scan requests are associated with known vulnerability scanners such as Nessus and Qualys.
- DNS
- See which DNS servers are most active on your network and the total number of reverse DNS lookup failures those servers have encountered. A reverse DNS lookup failure occurs when a server issues an error in response to a client request for a pointer (PTR) record. Failures in reverse DNS lookups are normal, but a sudden or steady increase in failures on a specific host might indicate that an attacker is scanning your network.
Note: | From a console, you can display the Security dashboard for each packet sensor. Click down arrow next to the name of the sensor in the navigation bar to display the Security dashboard for other sensors. |
System Health dashboard
The System Health dashboard provides a large collection of charts that enable you to make sure that your ExtraHop system is running as expected, to troubleshoot issues, and to assess areas that are affecting performance. For example, you can monitor the number of packets processed by the ExtraHop system to ensure that packets are continuously captured.
Note: | The Administration settings page also provides status information and diagnostic tools for all ExtraHop systems. |
Navigate the System Health dashboard
Access the System Health page by clicking the System Settings icon or by clicking Dashboards from the top of the page. The System Health dashboard automatically displays information about the ExtraHop system you are connected to. If you are viewing the System Health dashboard from a console, you can click the site selector at the top of the page to view data for a specific site or for all sites in your environment.
Charts on the System Health dashboard are divided into the following sections:
- Device Discovery
- View the total amount of devices on your network. See which devices have been discovered and how many of those devices are currently active.
- Data Feed
- Assess the efficiency of the wire data collection process with charts related to throughput, packet rate, desyncs, and capture drops.
- Records
- View the total amount of records that are being sent to an attached recordstore..
- Triggers
- Monitor the impact of triggers on your ExtraHop system. See how often triggers are running, how often they are failing, and which triggers are placing the largest load on your CPU.
- Open Data Stream and Recordstore
- Follow the activity of open data stream (ODS) transmissions to and from your system. View the total number of remote connections, message throughput, and details related to specific remote targets.
- SSL Certificates
- Review the status information for all SSL certificates on your ExtraHop system.
- Remote Packet Capture (RPCAP)
- View the number of packets and frames that are sent and received by RPCAP peers.
- Advanced Health Metrics
- Track heap allocation related to data capture, the system datastore, triggers, and remote transmissions. Monitor write throughput, working set size, and trigger activity on the system datastore.
Create a dashboard
Dashboards provide a single location for important metrics that you care about. When you create a custom dashboard, a dashboard layout opens containing a single region with an empty chart widget and an empty text box widget. Edit a chart to incorporate real-time metrics into your dashboard, and edit a text box to provide information. Finally adjust the layout and add more widgets to complete your dashboard and begin monitoring your network.
Before you begin
Determine which metrics you want to monitor on your dashboard. Ask yourself the following questions:- Do I want to track if my server is offline or unavailable? Add availability metrics such as requests and responses to your dashboard charts.
- Is my server functioning properly? Add reliability metrics such as errors to your dashboard charts.
- Is my server properly resourced? Add performance metrics such as server processing time to your dashboard charts.
Create the dashboard layout
The following steps show you how to create the framework for your dashboard, which includes two empty widget types: a chart and a text box. Your new dashboard opens in Edit Layout mode (which is displayed in the upper right corner). Edit Layout mode enables you to quickly edit your chart and text box, and arrange the placement of widgets and regions on a dashboard.
- Log in to the ExtraHop system through https://<extrahop-hostname-or-IP-address>.
- At the top of the page, click Dashboards.
-
On the Dashboards page, complete one of the following steps:
- Click Dashboards in the dashboard dock and then click Create Dashboard at the bottom of the dock.
- Click the command menu in the upper right corner of the page and select New Dashboard.
- In the Dashboard Properties window, type a name for your dashboard.
- Enter any other meta data for your dashboard, such as a name for the author or a description. Note that the Permalink provides a direct URL to your dashboard for any users who have sharing privileges for your dashboard.
- Click Create.
Edit a basic chart
The following steps show the general flow for editing a chart widget in the Metric Explorer tool. Begin by specifying sources and metrics to add data to your chart. For example, you can now add the availability, reliability, or performance metrics that you considered at the beginning of this procedure to your dashboard. Then choose a chart type to visualize the data.
Next steps
- Learn more about charts from the Charts FAQ.
- Practice building charts by completing the following walkthroughs:
Edit a basic text box widget
The following steps show you how to display custom text in a dashboard region, which is a helpful tool for adding notes about a chart or data in a dashboard. The text box widget supports the Markdown syntax. A new text box widget contains sample text that is already formatted in Markdown to provide you with basic examples.
- Click the text box.
- Type and edit text in the left Editor pane. The HTML output text dynamically displays in the right Preview pane. For more formatting examples, see Format text in Markdown.
- Click Save.
Add more widgets and regions to your dashboard
Add and arrange the placement of regions and widgets on your dashboards.
Next steps
Now that your dashboard is complete, you can perform the following steps:
Chart editing tips
The following tips help you search for and select metrics when building a chart.
- Filter search results to a specific source type or protocol by clicking Any Type or Any Protocol underneath the search fields.
- You can only select the same source type that is currently in your metric set. A metric set contains one source type and metrics. For example, if you select the All Activity application as the source, you can only add more applications to that metric set.
- Create an ad hoc group of more than one source in your chart by selecting Combine Sources. For example, you can combine two applications and then view a single metric value in the chart for both of these applications.
- If you select a device group as your source, you can Drill down by Group Member to display individual metrics for up to 20 of the devices within the group.
Create a dashboard with dynamic sources
You can create a dashboard with dynamic sources to enable users to change the source of the dashboard at any time. If you have created a large number of dashboards that all have the same metrics, but different sources, you might want to consider replacing those dashboards with a single, dynamic-source dashboard.
Tip: | If you want to hide the dynamic source menu from your dashboard, append
the following parameter to the end of the dashboard page URL:
&hideTemplatePanel=true. Before After For example: https://eda/extrahop/#/Dashboard/XYFwM/?$device=16&from=30&interval_type=MIN&until=0&hideTemplatePanel=true |
Next steps
Copy a dashboard
If you want to duplicate a useful dashboard, you can copy a dashboard and then replace or modify sources to display different application, device, or network data. You can only copy one dashboard at a time.
Note: | If you only want to copy a dashboard so you can change the source across the entire dashboard, you might want to consider creating a dashboard with dynamic sources instead of making multiple copies of a single dashboard. |
Edit a dashboard layout
Place your dashboard into Edit Layout mode to add, delete, or rearrange the widgets and regions on your dashboard layout. You can only add or delete widgets or regions when the dashboard is in Edit Layout mode.
When you create a new dashboard, the dashboard is automatically placed into Edit Layout Mode. To edit the layout of an existing dashboard, complete the following steps:
Edit a chart with the Metric Explorer
The Metric Explorer is a tool for creating and editing charts, which lets you construct dynamic visualizations of device and network behavior.
Create and edit a basic chart
With the Metric Explorer, you can edit chart components, such as sources, metrics, and data calculations, and then preview how metric data appears in different chart types. When you are satisfied with your selections, save your chart to a dashboard.
The following steps show you the basic workflow and minimum requirements for completing a new chart.
Configure advanced options for data analysis and chart customization
Depending on the metrics and chart type you select, you can configure advanced options for creating sophisticated visualizations with the Metric Explorer, as shown in the following figure.
Drill down on metric data and sources to display details
In the Details section from the Metrics tab, you can drill down to display detail metrics or drill down on a device group to display individual devices within the chart. You can also filter detail metrics for exact matches, or create a regex filter.Add a baseline or threshold line from the Analysis tab
You add a dynamic baseline or static threshold line to your chart. Baselines are calculated after the chart is saved. To see a line that represents a threshold, such as an service level agreement (SLA) value, add a static threshold line to your chart.Rename legend labels and the chart title
For charts that display a legend, you can change a metric name in the chart legend with a custom label. In the Metric Explorer, click the label in the preview pane then select Rename. To rename a chart, click the chart title and select Rename.Customize your chart from the Options tab
You can access the following options for customizing chart properties and the display of metric data in your chart:- Convert metric data from bytes to bits
- Convert metric data from base 2 (Ki=1024) to base 10 (K = 1000)
- Change the y-axis in a time-series chart from linear to log scale
- Abbreviate metric values in a chart (for example, abbreviate 16,130,542 bytes to 16.1 MB)
- Sort metric data in ascending or descending order in a bar, list, or value chart
- Change the percentile precision in a pie chart
- Hide or display a chart legend
- Hide inactive metrics with a zero value so that these metrics are not visible in the chart, including the legend and label
- Include sparkline in a list or value chart
- Show the alert status for data displayed in list or value charts (for more information, see Alerts)
- Switch the color display for metric data to grayscale (with exception to charts that display an alert status)
- For IP address labels, display the hostname (if detected from DNS traffic in wire data) or origin IP address (if a proxy is detected from wire data)
- Show the relative time for an expiration date, such as the number of days until an SSL certificate expires.
Note: | Some options are only available for specific chart types. For example, the option to include a sparkline only appears in the Options tab for list and value charts. |
Create an ad hoc group to combine data from multiple sources
From the Metric tab, you can create an ad hoc group of multiple sources within a set by selecting Combine Sources. For example, you can combine two applications and then view a single metric value in the chart for both of these applications.Next steps
Practice building charts by completing the following walkthroughs:Regular expression filters
Filter your search results by writing regular expression (regex) strings in certain search fields throughout the ExtraHop system. For example, you can filter for parameters in a detail metric key, such as a number within an IP address. You can also filter by excluding specific keys or a combination of keys from charts.
- Search fields with an asterisk
- Click the asterisk to enable regex strings.
This type of field is available from the following system pages:- Filtering a table of devices
- Creating filter criteria for a dynamic device group
- Certain search fields with a trifield operator
- Click the operator drop-down to select the regex option.
This type of field is available from the following system page:- Editing a chart in Metric Explorer
- Certain search fields with a tooltip
- Hover over the tooltip in the field to see when regex is required.
This type of field is available from the following system page:- Adding record relationships to a custom metric
The following table includes examples of standard regex syntax.
Chart Scenario | Regex filter | How it works |
---|---|---|
Compare HTTP status codes 200 to 404. | (200|404) | The vertical bar symbol ( | ) is the OR operator. This filter matches 200, or 404, or both status codes. |
Display any HTTP status code that contains a 4. | [41] | Square brackets ( [ and ] ) designate a range of characters. The filter searches for every character inside the brackets, regardless of order. This filter matches any value that contains a 4 or a 1. For example, this filter can return 204, 400, 101, or 201 status codes. |
Display all 500-level HTTP status codes. | ^[5] | The caret symbol ( ^ ) outside square brackets ( [ and ] ) means "starts with." This filter matches any value that begins with a 5. For example, this filter can return 500 and 502 status codes. |
Display all 400 and 500-level HTTP status codes. | ^[45] | Multiple values inside square brackets ( [ and ] ) are searched individually, even when preceded by the caret symbol ( ^ ). This filter does not search for values that begin with 45, but matches all values that begin with a 4 or 5. For example, this filter can return 400, 403, and 500 status codes. |
Display any HTTP status codes except 200-level status codes. | ^(?!2) | A question mark ( ? ) and exclamation point ( ! ) inside parentheses specify a value to exclude. This filter matches all values except values beginning with a 2. For example, this filter can return 400, 500, and 302 status codes. |
Display any IP address with a 187. | 187. | Matches 1, 8, and 7 characters in the IP address. This filter will not return IP addresses that end in 187 because the trailing period designates that something must come after the values. If you want to search the period as a literal value, you must precede it with a backslash ( \ ). |
Review all IP addresses containing 187.18. | 187\.18. | Matches 187.18 and anything that follows. The first period is treated literally because it is preceded by a backslash ( \ ). The second period is treated as a wildcard. For example, this filter returns results for 187.18.0.0, 180.187.0.0, or 187.180.0.0/16. This filter does not return an address that ends with 187.18, because the wildcard requires that characters follow the specified values. |
Display any IP address except 187.18.197.150. | ^(?!187\.18\.197\.150) | Matches anything except 187.18.197.150, where ^(?!) specifies the value to exclude. |
Exclude a list of specific IP addresses. | ^(?!187\.18\.197\.15[012]) | Matches anything except 187.18.197.150, 187.18.197.151, and 187.18.197.152, where ^(?!) specifies the value to exclude and the square brackets ( [ and ] ) specify multiple values. |
Additional filters
When you create a custom detail metric from the Metric Catalog, you can add advanced regex syntax to the Additional Filters search field in the Record Relationships section.
The regex syntax in this field must meet the following requirements:
- If your key contains multiple values, your regex syntax must include a
single capture group. A capture group is designated by parenthesis. Your
capture group determines the filter value.
- If you want to return a specific value from a detail metric key that
contains multiple record field values, the regex must follow this syntax:
$KEY:/<regex>/
For example, if your detail metric key is ipaddr:host:cipher and you only want to return the IP address value, you would type the following:
$KEY:/^([^:]+):.+/
- If your key contains multiple record field values, the values are separated by a delimiter that is specified in the trigger that is generating the key. The placement of the delimiters in your regex syntax must match the delimiters in the detail key. For example, if you have a key with three values that are separated by a delimiter that is a colon, the three values for the key in your regex syntax must be separated by two colons.
Tip: | If you want to return all record field values in a detail metric key, type $KEY. For example, if your detail metric key is ipaddr:host:cipher, type $KEY in the search field to return all three of those field record values (IP address, hostname, and SSL cipher suite). |
Edit a text box widget
If you want to include explanatory text next to your dashboard charts or display a company logo in your dashboard, you can edit a text box widget. With the text box widget, you can display text, links, images, or sample metrics in your dashboard.
The text box widget supports Markdown, which is a simple formatting syntax that converts plain text into HTML with non-alphabetic characters, such as "#" or "*". New text box widgets contain Markdown examples. A text box widget is automatically provided each time you create a dashboard. You can also add a text box widget to your dashboard layout.
To edit an existing text box widget, complete the following steps:
Format text in Markdown
The following table shows common Markdown formats that are supported in the text box widget.
Note: | Additional Markdown format examples are provided in the GitHub Guides: Mastering Markdown. However, not all Markdown syntax formatting options are supported in the ExtraHop text box widget. |
Format | Description | Example |
---|---|---|
Headings | Place a number sign (#) before your text to format headings. The level of heading is determined by the amount of number signs. | ####Example H4 heading |
Unordered lists | Place a single asterisk (*) before your text. | * First example * Second example |
Ordered lists | Place a single number and period (1.) before your text. | 1. First example 2. Second example |
Bold | Place double asterisks before and after your text. | **bold text** |
Italics | Place an underscore before and after your text. | _italicized text_ |
Hyperlinks |
Place link text in brackets before the URL in parentheses. Or type your URL. Links to external websites open in a new browser tab. Links within the ExtraHop system, such as dashboards, open in the current browser tab. |
[Visit our home page](https://www.extrahop.com) https://www.extrahop.com |
Blockquotes | Place a right angle bracket and a space before your text. |
On the ExtraHop website: > Access the live demo and review case studies. |
Monospace font | Place a backtick (`) before and after your text. | `example code block` |
Emojis | Adding emojis in Markdown syntax is unsupported; however, you can copy and
paste a Unicode emoji image into the text box. See the Unicode Emoji Chart website for images. |
Ā |
Add images in Markdown
You can add images to the text box widget by linking to them. Make sure your image is hosted on a network that is accessible to the ExtraHop system.
Links to images must be specified in the following format:
![<alt_text>](<file_path>)
Where <alt_text> is the alternative text for the image name and <file_path> is the path of the image. For example:
![Graph](/images/graph_1.jpg)
Note: | You also can add images by encoding them to Base64. For more information, see the following post on the ExtraHop forum, "Putting Images in Text Boxes." |
Add metric examples in Markdown
You can write a metric query to include a metric value inline with text in the text box widget. For example, to show how many web servers have returned a 404 error, you can add a metric query to a sentence and the value is updated within the text.
The following example shows the basic format for writing metric queries:
%%metric:{ "metric_category": "<metric_category>", "object_type": "<object_type>", "object_ids": [object_id], "metric_specs": [ { "name": "<metric_spec>" } ] }%%
To locate the object_type, metric_spec, and metric_category values for a metric, complete the following steps:
- Click Settings
- Click Metric Catalog.
- Type the metric name in the search field.
- Select the metric, and note the values for metric_category, object_type, and metric_spec in the REST API Parameters section.
To locate the object_id for a device, device group, or other asset, complete the following steps:
- Click Assets, and then click an asset type from the left pane.
- Click the name of the asset you want, and then open the properties window.
- Note the value displayed for the REST API ID.
After you locate the values for the metric you want to display, add them to the metric query in the text editor. The value will be displayed in the text widget.
Note: | The following metric queries are unsupported in the text box widget:
|
Metric query examples for the text box widget
The following examples show you how to write top-level, or base, metric queries for application, device, and network objects. You can also write a query for detail metrics.
Application metrics
To specify the All Activity object, the object_ids is "0".
This example query shows how you can retrieve HTTP metrics from the All Activity application object, and displays the following output: "Getting [value] HTTP requests and [value] HTTP responses from All Activity."
Getting %%metric:{ "object_type": "application", "object_ids": [0], "metric_category": "http", "metric_specs": [{"name":"req"}] }%%HTTP requests and %%metric:{ "object_type": "application", "object_ids": [0], "metric_category": "http", "metric_specs": [{"name":"rsp"}] }%% HTTP responses from All Activity.
Device metrics
You must specify either a client ("_client") or server ("_server") in the metric_category. To retrieve metrics for a specific device, specify the device object ID number in object_ids. To retrieve the device object ID (deviceOid), search for the device object in the ExtraHop global search. Select the device from your search results. The "deviceOid=" value will be embedded in the URL query string.
This example query shows how to retrieve metrics from a device client object, and displays the following output: "Getting [value] CLIENT DNS response errors from a specific device."
Getting %%metric:{"object_type": "device", "object_ids": [8], "metric_category": "dns_client", "metric_specs": [{"name":"rsp_error"}] }%% CLIENT DNS response errors from a specific device.
This example query shows how to retrieve metrics from a device server object, and displays the following output: "Getting [value] SERVER DNS response errors from a specific device."
Getting %%metric:{ "object_type": "device", "object_ids": [156], "metric_category": "dns_server", "metric_specs": [{"name":"rsp_error"}] }%% SERVER DNS response errors from a specific device.
Network metrics
To specify All Networks, the object_type is "capture" and the object_ids is "0." To specify a specific VLAN, the object_type is "vlan" and the object_ids is the VLAN number.
This example query shows how to retrieve metrics for all networks, and displays the following output: "Getting [value] broadcast packets from all networks."
Getting %%metric:{ "object_type": "capture", "object_ids": [0], "metric_category": "net","metric_specs": [{"name":"frame_cast_broadcast_pkts"}] }%% broadcast packets from all networks.
This example query shows how to retrieve metrics for a specific VLAN and displays the following output: "Getting [value] broadcast packets from VLAN 3."
Getting %%metric:{ "object_type": "vlan", "object_ids": [3], "metric_category": "net", "metric_specs": [{"name":"frame_cast_broadcast_pkts"}] }%% broadcast packets from VLAN 3.
Group metrics
To specify a group, the object_type is "device_group." You must specify either a client ("_client") or server ("_server") in the metric_category. The object_ids for the specific group must be retrieved from the REST API Explorer.
This example query shows how to retrieve metrics for all networks, and displays the following output: "Getting [value] HTTP responses from the HTTP Client Device Group."
Getting %%metric:{ "object_type": "device_group", "object_ids": [17], "metric_category": "http_client", "metric_specs": [{"name":"req"}] }%% HTTP responses from the HTTP Client Device Group.
Detail metrics
If you want to retrieve detail metrics, your metric query should contain additional key parameters, such as key1 and key2:
- object_type
- object_ids
- metric_category
- metric_spec
- name
- key1
- key2
Important: | You must supply the object_ids in your query. |
This example shows how to retrieve HTTP requests by URI for the All Activity application (object_ids is "0"):
%%metric:{ "object_type": "application", "object_ids": [0], "metric_category": "http_uri_detail", "metric_specs": [{"name":"req"}] }%%
This example query shows you how to retrieve HTTP requests by URIs that contain a key value for "pagead2" for the All Activity application (object_ids is "0"):
%%metric:{ "metric_category": "http_uri_detail", "object_type": "application", "object_ids": [0], "metric_specs": [ { "name": "req", "key1": "/pagead2/" } ] }%%
This example query shows how to retrieve count metrics for all networks and displays the following output: "Getting [value] detail ICA metrics on all networks."
Getting %%metric:{ "object_type": "capture", "object_ids": [0], "metric_category": "custom_detail", "metric_specs": [{ "name":"custom_count", "key1":"network-app-byte-detail-ICA" }] }%% detail ICA metrics on all networks.
This example query shows how to retrieve a custom dataset statistic with topn keys and percentiles, and displays the following output: "The fifth percentile is: [value]."
The fifth percentile is: %%metric:{ "object_type": "vlan", "object_ids": [1], "metric_category": "custom_detail", "metric_specs": [{ "name": "custom_dset", "key1": "myCustomDatasetDetail", "key2": "/10.10.7/", "calc_type": "percentiles", "percentiles": [5] }] }%% .
Note: | Sampleset metrics are unsupported in the text box widget. For example, adding the "calc_type": "mean" parameter to your text box query is unsupported. |
Edit a dashboard region
Dashboard regions, which contain charts and widgets, are highly customizable. As you work with dashboards, you might need to frequently change or copy a region. You can only delete, resize, or rearrange a region by editing the dashboard layout.
Edit dashboard properties
To rename a dashboard, change the theme, or change the URL, you must edit the dashboard properties. When you create a dashboard, you have an opportunity to specify dashboard properties. However, you can change dashboard properties at any time.
Present a dashboard
You can set your dashboard to display in fullscreen mode for presentations or for your network operation center screens.
The fullscreen mode provides the following viewing options:
- You can view and interact with the entire dashboard while in Presentation Mode.
- You can view a continuous cycle of each chart in the dashboard in a Widget Slideshow.
- You can view a single region in fullscreen display.
To present an entire dashboard in fullscreen display, complete the following steps:
Share a dashboard
By default, all custom dashboards you create are private, which means that no ExtraHop users can view or edit your dashboard. However, you can share your dashboard by granting view or edit access to other ExtraHop users and groups.
Here are some importance considerations about sharing dashboards:
- How a user interacts with a shared dashboard and the information they can view in the ExtraHop system is determined by user privileges. For example, you can add a user with the Restricted read-only privilege, which allows that user to only view the dashboards that you share with them in the ExtraHop system. For more information, see the User privileges section in the ExtraHop Administrators Guide.
- When you grant a user edit permission, that user can modify and share the dashboard with others, and add it to a collection. However, other users cannot delete the dashboard. Only the dashboard owner can delete a dashboard.
- Group information is imported into the ExtraHop system from LDAP (such as OpenLDAP or Active Directory). User information is available after an ExtraHop user logs in to their account.
- To share a dashboard with a non-ExtraHop user, you can create a PDF file of the dashboard.
- You can create a scheduled report, which sends the PDF file of the dashboard to any email recipient on a regular basis. (Consoles only.)
Remove access to a dashboard
You can remove or modify dashboard access that you granted to users and groups.
- Log in to the ExtraHop system through https://<extrahop-hostname-or-IP-address>.
- At the top of the page, click Dashboards.
- From the dashboard dock, select the custom dashboard that you want to modify.
- Click the command menu in the upper right corner of the page and select Share.
-
Remove access for users or groups by completing one of the following
steps:
- Remove all access for a user or group by clicking the red delete (x) icon next to the user or group name.
- Remove edit access by selecting Can view from the drop-down list next to the user or group name.
- Click Save.
Create a dashboard collection
You can create a collection to organize dashboards that you own and that have been shared with you.
Here are some important considerations about dashboard collections:
- Your user privileges determine whether you can create and share collections.
- You can add any dashboard to a collection that you own or have permission to view or edit.
- You can add a dashboard to multiple collections.
- You can share a collection if you own or have edit permission for all of the dashboards in that collection.
Export data
You can export chart data from the ExtraHop system in CSV and XLSX formats.
You can also create PDFs of ExtraHop charts, pages, and dashboards.
Create a PDF file
You can export data from a dashboard, protocol page, or individual chart as a PDF file.
Customize the format of a PDF file
When creating a PDF file of a dashboard or protocol page from a console, you have several options for customizing the appearance of your PDF file.
Next steps
The PDF file will download to your local computer. Each PDF file includes the dashboard title and time interval. Click View report on ExtraHop to open the original dashboard set to the time interval specified in the PDF file.Chart types
Dashboard charts in the ExtraHop system offer multiple ways to visualize metric data, which can help you answer questions about your network behavior.
- To learn how a metric changes over time, select a time-series chart such as the area, column, line, line & column, or status chart.
- To learn how a metric value compares to a complete set of data, select a distribution chart such as the box plot, candlestick, heatmap, or histogram chart.
- To learn the exact metric value for a time period, select a total value chart such as the bar, list, pie, table, or value chart.
- To learn the alert status of this metric, select the list, status, or value chart.
Find more answers in the Charts FAQ.
The following table provides a list of chart types and descriptions. Click on the chart type to see more details and examples.
Chart Type | Description | Type |
---|---|---|
Area chart | Displays metric values as a line that connects data points over time, with the area between the line and axis filled in with color. | Time-series |
Column chart | Displays metric data as vertical columns over a selected time interval. | Time-series |
Line chart | Displays metric values as data points in a line over time. | Time-series |
Line & Column chart | Displays metric values as a line, which connects a series of data points over time, with the option to display another metric as a column chart underneath the line chart. | Time-series |
Status chart | Displays metric values in a column chart and the status of an alert assigned to both the source and metric in the chart. | Time-series |
Box plot chart | Displays variability for a distribution of metric data. Each horizontal line in the box plot includes three or five data points. | Distribution |
Candlestick chart | Displays variability for a distribution of metric data over time. | Distribution |
Heatmap chart | Displays a distribution of metric data over time, where color represents a concentration of data. | Distribution |
Histogram chart | Displays a distribution of metric data as vertical bars or bins. | Distribution |
Bar chart | Displays the total value of metric data as horizontal bars. | Total value |
List chart | Displays metric data as a list with optional sparklines that represent data changes over time. | Total value |
Pie chart | Displays metric data as a portion or percentage of a whole. | Total value |
Table chart | Displays multiple metric values in a table, which can be easily sorted. | Total value |
Value chart | Displays the total value for one or more metrics. | Total value |
Area chart
Metric data is displayed as data points over time connected by a line, with the area between the line and the x-axis filled in with color.
If your chart contains more than one metric, data for each metric is displayed as an individual line, or a series. Each series is stacked together to illustrate the cumulative value of the data.
Select the area chart to see how the accumulation of multiple metric data points over time contribute to a total value. For example, an area chart can reveal how various protocols contribute to total protocol activity.
For more information about displaying rates in your chart, see the Display rates section.
Note: | This chart supports detection markers, which indicate detections associated with chart data. |
Note: | Machine learning detections require a connection to ExtraHop Cloud Services. |
The following figure shows an example of an area chart.
Bar chart
The total value of metric data is displayed as horizontal bars.
Select the bar chart when you want to compare the data for more than one metric for a selected time interval.
The following figure shows an example of a bar chart.
Box plot chart
The box plot chart displays variability for a distribution of metric data. You can only display data from dataset metrics, such as server processing time, in this chart.
Each horizontal line in the box plot includes three or five data points. With five data points, the line contains a body bar, a vertical tick mark, an upper shadow line, and a lower shadow line. With three data points, the line contains a vertical tick mark, an upper shadow, and lower shadow. For more information about displaying specific percentile values in your chart, see Display percentiles.
The following figure shows an example of a box plot chart.
Candlestick chart
The candlestick chart displays variability for a distribution of metric data over time. You can only display data from dataset metrics or high-precision network (L2) byte and packet metrics.
Vertical lines at each time interval displays three or five data points. If the line has five data points, it contains a body, middle tick mark, an upper shadow line, and a lower shadow line. If the line has three data points, it contains a middle tick mark. For more information about displaying specific percentile values in your chart, see Display percentiles.
Select the candlestick chart to view the variability of data calculations for a specific period of time.
The following figure shows an example of a candlestick chart.
Column chart
Metric data is displayed as vertical columns over time. If your chart contains more than one metric, data for each metric is displayed as an individual column or as a series. Each series is stacked together to illustrate the cumulative value of the data.
Select the column chart to compare how accumulation of multiple metric data points at a specific time contribute to the total value.
Note: | This chart supports detection markers, which indicate detections associated with chart data. |
The following figure shows an example of a column chart.
Heatmap chart
The heatmap chart displays a distribution of metric data over time, where color represents a concentration of data. You can only select a dataset metric to display in the chart, such as server processing time or round trip time.
Select the heatmap when you want to identify patterns in the distribution of data.
- The heatmap legend displays the color gradient that corresponds to the data range in the chart. For example, the darker color on the heatmap indicates a higher concentration of data points.
- The default data range is between the 5th and 95th percentiles, which filters outliers from the distribution. Outliers can skew the scale of data displayed in your chart, making it more difficult to spot trends and patterns for the majority of your data. However, you can choose to view the full range of data by changing the default filter in the Options tab. For more information, see Filter outliers.
- The selected theme, such as Light, Dark, or Space, affects whether a dark or light color indicates a higher concentration of data points.
The following figure shows an example of a heatmap chart.
Histogram chart
The histogram chart displays a distribution of metric data as vertical bars, or bins. You can only select a dataset metric to display in this chart, such as server processing time or round trip time.
Select the histogram chart to view the shape of how data is distributed.
- The default data range is from the 5th to 95th percentile (5th-95th), which filters outliers from the distribution. The minimum to maximum (Min-Max) view displays the full data range. Click the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the chart to toggle between the two views.
- Data is automatically distributed into bins on either a linear or log scale based on the data range. For example, when the data range spans several orders of magnitude, data is placed into bins on a log scale. Min-Max (log) appears in the upper right corner of the chart.
- Click-and-drag to zoom in on multiple bins or a specific bin. Click the magnifying
glass again in the upper right corner of the chart to zoom out to the original view
(either 5th-95th or Min to Max).
Note: Zooming in to view a custom time interval does not change the global or region time interval. - Your toggle selection (between the 5th-95th and Min-Max views) will persist for your chart, but not for the users that you shared your dashboard and chart with. To set a persistent toggle selection before sharing a dashboard, see Filter outliers.
The following figure shows an example of a histogram chart.
Note: | This chart does not support baselines or threshold lines. |
Line chart
Metric data is displayed as data points over time that are connected in a line. If your chart contains more than one metric, data for each metric is displayed as an individual line or as a series. Each series overlaps.
Select the line chart to compare changes over time.
Note: | This chart supports detection markers, which indicate detections associated with chart data. |
The following figure shows an example of a line chart.
Line & column chart
Metric data is displayed as data points over time connected by a line, with the option to display a column chart underneath the line chart. For example, if your chart contains more than one metric (for example, HTTP Requests and HTTP Errors), you can select Display as Columns to display one of the metrics as a column chart underneath the line chart.
Columns are displayed in the color red by default. To remove the red color, click Options and deselect Display columns in red.
Select the line & column chart to compare different metrics at different scales in one chart. For example, you can view error rates and the total number of HTTP responses in one chart.
Note: | This chart supports detection markers, which indicate detections associated with chart data. |
The following figure shows an example of a line & column chart.
List chart
Metric data is displayed as a list. Select the list chart to view long lists of metric values, such as detail metrics.
- Add a sparkline, which is a simple area chart placed inline with the metric name and value. A sparkline shows how data changed over time. Click the Options tab and select Include sparklines.
- Display the metric value in an alert status color. Different colors indicate the severity of the configured alert. For example, if an alert threshold is crossed for a metric that is displayed in the list chart, the value for that metric appears in red. Click the Options tab and select Color indicates alert status.
Note: | This chart does not support baselines or threshold lines. |
The following figure shows an example of a list chart.
Pie chart
Metric data is displayed as a portion or percentage of a whole. If your chart contains more than one metric, data for each metric is represented as single slice, or series, in the pie chart.
Select the pie chart to compare the metric values that are mutually exclusive, such as status code detail metrics for the top-level HTTP Response metric.
- Display as a donut chart. Click the Option tab and select Show total value.
- Specify the decimal precision, or the number of digits, displayed in your chart. Percentile precision is useful for displaying ratios of data, especially for service-level agreements (SLAs) that might require precise data for reporting. Click the Options tab, and in the Units section, select Show percents instead of counts. Then select 0.00% or 0.000% from the drop-down list.
The following figure shows an example of a pie chart.
Status chart
Metric data is displayed in a column chart. The color of each column represents the most severe alert status of the configured alert for the metric. You can only select one source and metric to display in this chart.
To view the status of all of the alerts associated with the selected metric category, click Show Related Alerts. A list of alerts is then displayed below the column chart.
Select the status chart to see how data and the alert status for your metric change over time.
Note: | This chart does not support baselines. |
The following figure shows an example of a status chart.
Table chart
Metric data is displayed across rows and columns in a table. Each row represents a source. Each column represents a metric. You can add multiple sources (of the same type) and metrics to a table.
Note: | This chart does not support baselines or threshold lines. |
The following figure shows an example of a table chart.
Value chart
The total value for one or more metrics is displayed as a single value. If you select more than one metric, metric values are displayed side-by-side.
Select the value chart to see the total value of important metrics, such as the total number of HTTP errors occurring on your network.
- Add sparklines, which is a simple area chart placed underneath the metric value. A sparkline shows how data changed over time. Click the Options tab and select Include sparklines.
- Display the metric value in an alert status color. Different colors indicate the severity of the configured alert. For example, if an alert threshold is crossed for a metric, the value appears in red. Click the Options tab and select Color indicates alert status.
Note: | This chart does not support baselines or threshold lines. |
The following figure shows an example of a value chart.
Create a chart
Charts are an essential tool for visualizing, analyzing, and understanding network behavior. You can create a custom chart from a dashboard or protocol page to visualize data from any of the 4,000+ built-in metrics or custom metrics available in the ExtraHop system. For example, if you observe an interesting server metric while troubleshooting, you can create a chart to visualize and further analyze that metric. Customized charts are then saved to dashboards.
Next steps
After you create a chart, learn more about working with dashboards:
Copy a chart
You can copy a chart from a dashboard or protocol page and then save the copied chart to a dashboard. Copied widgets are always placed into a new region on the dashboard, which you can later modify.
Tip: | If you want to copy a dashboard chart or text box without creating a new region, click the command menu in the upper right corner of the dashboard page and click Edit Layout. Find the chart you want to copy and then click Duplicate. |
Next steps
The chart is copied into a new region on the dashboard that is in Edit Layout mode. You can now edit your dashboard or chart in the following ways:Drill down
An interesting metric naturally leads to questions about the factors associated with that metric value. For example, if you find a large number of DNS request timeouts on your network, you might wonder which DNS clients are experiencing those timeouts. In the ExtraHop system, you can easily drill down from a top-level metric to view the devices, methods, or resources associated with that metric.
When you drill down on a metric by a key (such as a client IP address, method, URI, or resource), the ExtraHop system calculates a topnset of up to 1,000 key-value pairs. You can then investigate these key-value pairs, referred to as detail metrics, to learn which factors are linked to the interesting activity.
Drill down from a dashboard or protocol page
Clicking a metric in a chart or legend helps you see which key, such as client IP address, server IP address, method, or resource, contributed to that value.
The following steps show you how to locate a metric and then drill down:
Next steps
Drill down on network capture and VLAN metrics
Click an interesting top-level metric about network activity on a Network capture or VLAN page to identify which devices are linked to that activity.
Note: | For information about how to drill down on metrics from a flow network or flow network interface page, see the Drill down from a dashboard or protocol page section. |
- Log in to the ExtraHop system through https://<extrahop-hostname-or-IP-address>.
- Click Assets.
- Click Networks in the left pane.
- Click a network capture or VLAN interface name.
- Click a network layer in the left pane, such as L3 or L7 Protocols. Charts that display metric values for the selected time interval appear. For most protocols and metrics, a Device table also appears at the bottom of the page.
- Click the chart data, which updates the list to display only the devices that are associated with the data.
- Click a device name. A Device page appears, which displays traffic and protocol activity associated with the selected device.
Drill down from a detection
For certain detections you can drill down to see more details about the metric or key that contributed to the unusual behavior. The metric name or key appears as a link at the bottom of an individual detection.
Note: | Detections with metrics or keys that do not have detail metrics do not include a
drill down option. Detections that only display anomalous protocol activity instead
of a metric also do not include a metric drill down option. For example, you cannot
drill down on a detection for Anomalous DNS Client activity, as shown in the figure
below. Instead, click the links for the device or application name,
Activity Map, or Records to learn
more about the anomalous activity. |
Drill down from an alert
Click the metric name or key in a threshold or detection alert to see which key, such as client, server, method, or resource, contributed to the metric value or unusual behavior.
Investigate detail metrics
After you drill down on a metric from a dashboard, protocol page, detection, or alert, you can investigate metric values by key on a detail metric page. Filter metric data or select different keys, such as status codes or URIs, to view data from different perspectives.
The following figure shows you how to filter, pivot, sort, or export data on a detail metric page.
If you drilled-down on a metric by IP, Client, or Server, IP addresses and hostnames (if observed from DNS traffic) appear in the table. Additional options are now available to you. For example, you can generate a geomap or directly navigate to a client or server protocol page, as shown in the following figure.
- Filter results
-
A detail page can contain up to 1,000 key-value pairs. There are two ways to find specific results from data: filter results or click a key in the table to create another drill-down filter.
To filter results, click Any Field, and then select a field, which varies by key. For example, you can select Network Locality for Client or Server keys. Then, select one of the following operators:
- Select = to perform an exact string match.
- Select ā to perform an approximate string match. The ā
operator supports regular expression.
Note: To exclude a result, enter a regular expression. For more information, see Create regular expression filters. - Select ā to exclude an approximate string match from your results.
- Select > or ā„ to perform a match for values greater than (or equal to) a specified value.
- Select < or ā¤ to perform a match for values less than (or equal to) a specified value.
- Click Add filter to save the filter settings. You can save multiple filters for one query. Saved filters are cleared if you select another key from the Details section in the left pane.
To complete the filter, enter or select a value that you want to filter results by, and then click Add Filter.
- Investigate threat intelligence data (ExtraHop Reveal(x) Premium and Ultra only)
- Click the red camera icon to view threat intelligence details about a suspicious host, IP address, or URI found in detail metric data.
- Highlight a metric value in the top chart
- Select an individual row or multiple rows to change chart data in the top chart on the detail metric page. Hover over data points in the chart to view more information about each data point.
- Pivot to more data by key
- Click key names in the Details section to see more detail metric values, broken down by other keys. For IP address or host keys, click a device name in the table to navigate to a Device protocol page, which displays traffic and protocol activity associated with that device.
- Adjust the time interval and compare data from two time intervals
- By changing the time interval, you can view and compare metric data from different times
in the same table. For more information, see Compare time intervals to find the metric delta.
Note: The global time interval in the upper left corner of the page includes a blue refresh icon and gray text that indicates when the drill-down metrics were last polled. To reload the metrics for the specified time interval, click the refresh icon in the Global Time Selector display. For more information, see View the latest data for a time interval. - Sort metric data in columns
- Click the column header to sort by metrics to view which keys are associated with the largest or smallest metric values. For example, sort on processing time to see which clients experienced the longest website load times.
- Change data calculation for metrics
- Change the following calculations for metric values displayed in the table:
- If you have a count metric in the table, click Count in the Options section in the left pane and then select Average Rate. Learn more in the Display a rate or count in a chart topic.
- If you have a dataset metric in the table, click Mean in the Options section in the left pane and then select Summary. When you select Summary, you can view the mean and the standard deviation.
- Export data
- Right-click a metric value in the table to download a PDF, CSV, or Excel file.
Drill-down a second time by a key filter
After you first drill down on a top-level metric by key, a detail page appears with a topnset of metric values broken down by that key. You can then create a filter to drill down a second time by another key. For example, you can drill down on HTTP responses by status code, and then drill down again by the 404 status code to find more information about the servers, URIs, or clients associated with that status code.
Note: | The option to drill-down a second time is only available for certain topnsets. |
The following steps show you how to drill down from a chart and then drill down again from a detail metric page:
Add detail metrics to a chart
If you want to quickly monitor a set of detail metrics in a dashboard, without repeatedly performing the same drill-down steps, you can drill down on a metric when editing a chart in the Metric Explorer. Most charts can display up to 20 of the top detail metric values broken down by key. A key can be a client IP address, hostname, method, URI, referrer, or more. Table and list widgets can display up to 200 top detail metric values.
For example, a dashboard for monitoring web traffic might contain a chart displaying the total number of HTTP requests and responses. You can edit this chart to drill down on each metric by IP address to see the top talkers.
The following steps show you how to edit an existing chart and then drill down to display detail metrics:
Display a rate or count in a chart
You can visualize errors, responses, requests, and other count metric data in a chart as a per second rate or as a total number of events over time. For high-precision Network Bytes and Network Packets metrics, you have the additional options to view the maximum, minimum, and average rate per second in a chart.
When editing a chart in the Metric Explorer, you can select a count or rate by clicking the drop-down link below the metric name, as shown in the following figure.
In addition, you can select from the following options for displaying rates and counts. Note that the type of metric you select affects which rate or count is automatically displayed.
- Average rate
- Calculates the average metric value per second for the selected time interval. For network-related metrics, such as Response L2 Bytes or NetFlow Bytes, the average rate per second is automatically displayed.
- Count
- Displays the total count of events for the selected time interval. For the majority of count metrics, such as errors, requests and responses, the count is automatically displayed.
- Rate summary
- Calculates the maximum, minimum, and average metric value per second. For high-precision metrics, such as Network Bytes and Network Packets, these three rates are automatically displayed in the chart as a summary. You can also select to view only the maximum, minimum, or average rate in a chart. High-precision metrics are collected with a 1-second level of granularity and are only available when you configure your chart with a network or device source.
Display the average rate in a chart
If you configured a chart with an error, response, request, or other type of count metric, then the total number of events over time is automatically displayed. You can further edit the chart to display an average rate per second for your data.
Before you begin
Create a chart and select a count metric, such as errors, requests, or responses, as your source. Save your chart to a dashboard.Display percentiles or a mean in a chart
If you have a set of servers that are critical to your network, viewing the 95th percentile of server processing time in a chart can help you gauge how much servers are struggling. Percentiles are statistical measures that can show you how a data point compares to a total distribution over time.
You can only display percentile value and mean (average) calculations in charts that contain dataset or sampleset metrics. Dataset metrics are associated with timing and latency, such as server processing time and round trip time metrics. Sampleset metrics provide summaries of detail timing metrics, such as server processing time broken down by server, method, or URI.
When editing a chart in the Metric Explorer, you can select percentiles or the mean by clicking the drop-down link below the dataset or sampleset metric name, as shown in the following figure.
The Metric Explorer provides the following calculations for displaying percentiles and the mean.
- Summary
-
For dataset metrics, the Summary is a range that includes the 95th, 75th, 50th, 25th, and 5th percentile values.
For example, each line in a candlestick chart contains five data points. If Summary is selected, the main body of the line represents the range from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile. The middle tick mark represents the 50th percentile (median). The upper shadow above the body line represents the 95th percentile. The lower shadow represents the 5th percentile.
For sampleset metrics, the Summary displays the +/-1 standard deviation and the mean values. In the candlestick chart, the vertical tick mark in the line represents the mean, and the upper and lower shadows represent the standard deviation values.
- Mean
- The calculated average of data.
- Median
- The 50th percentile value of a dataset metric.
- Maximum
- The 100th percentile value of a dataset metric.
- Minimum
- The 0th percentile value of a dataset metric.
- Percentile
- A custom range of three or five percentile values for a dataset metric.
Display a custom range of percentiles
You can display a custom range of three or five percentile values for server processing time or round trip time metrics. You cannot display custom percentiles in a pie or status chart.
The following steps show you how to add a custom percentile range to an existing dashboard chart:
Before you begin
Create a chart and select a dataset or sampleset metric, and save it to a dashboard.- Log in to the ExtraHop system through https://<extrahop-hostname-or-IP-address>.
- At the top of the page, click Dashboards.
-
Launch the Metric
Explorer to edit the chart by completing the following steps:
- From the dashboard dock, select a dashboard containing the chart you want to edit.
- Click the chart title and select Edit.
- Click Summary below the metric name.
- Select Percentile... from the drop-down list.
- In the Set Percentiles field, type a number for each percentile value, separated by a comma. For example, to view the 10th, 30th, and 80th percentiles, type 10, 30, 80.
- Click Save. Your custom range is now displayed in the chart. You can toggle between your custom range and other percentile selections, such as Summary or Maximum, at any time.
- Click Save again to close the Metric Explorer.
Filter outliers in histogram or heatmap charts
Histogram and heatmap charts display a distribution of data. However, outliers can skew how the distribution displays in your chart, making it difficult to notice patterns or average values. The default filter option for these charts excludes outliers from the data range and displays the 5th-95th percentiles. You can change the filter to view the full range of data (minimums to maximums), including outliers, in your chart by completing the following procedure.
- Click the chart title and then select Edit to launch the Metric Explorer.
- Click the Options tab.
- From the Default filter drop-down list in the Filters section, select Min to Max.
- Click Save to close the Metric Explorer.
Edit metric labels in a chart legend
You can change the default metric label in a chart to a custom label. For example, you can change the default label, "Network Bytes," to a custom label such as "Throughput."
Custom labels only apply to individual charts. A custom label for a metric will persist if you copy the chart to another dashboard, share a dashboard with another user, or add new metrics to your chart.
However, if you make changes to the original metric, such as updating the data calculation (from median to 95th percentile, for example) or drilling down on the metric, the custom label will automatically clear. The label clears to prevent mislabeling or potential inaccuracy of the custom label when metric data changes.
Here are some considerations about changing the label of a chart legend:
- For detail metrics, a custom label is
automatically appended to all the keys displayed in the chart. However, you can
change the order of the key in the label by including the variable,
$KEY:
- Type $KEY errors to display 172.21.1.1 errors
- Type [$KEY] errors to display [172.21.1.1] errors
- You cannot change labels in the box plot, candlestick, heatmap, table, or status charts.
- You cannot rename metric delta or dynamic baseline labels.
Before you begin
Create a chart and select a metric.The following steps show you how to change metric labels in an existing dashboard chart:
Add a dynamic baseline to a chart
Dynamic baselines help distinguish between normal and abnormal activity in your chart data. Baselines are only supported in the area, candlestick, column, line, and line & column charts.
The ExtraHop system calculates dynamic baselines based on historical data. To generate a new data point on a dynamic baseline, the system calculates the median value for a specified period of time.
Warning: | Deleting or modifying a dynamic baseline can delete baseline data from the system. If a dynamic baseline is not referenced by any dashboards, the data will be deleted from the system to free unused system resources. You cannot recover a dynamic baseline after it is deleted. |
Select a baseline type that best fits your environment. For example, if you regularly see dramatic changes from one day to another, select an hour-of-week baseline that compares activity seen on specific days of the week. If HTTP activity spikes on Saturdays, the hour-of-week baseline can help you compare the current spike in HTTP activity with the level seen on other Saturdays at the same hour. The following table describes how each type of baseline is calculated:
Baseline type | Historical data | What the baseline compares | New baseline data points added |
---|---|---|---|
Hour of day | 10 days | Metric values from a given hour of a day. For example, every day at 2:00 PM. | Every hour |
Hour of week | 5 weeks | Metric values for a given hour on a specific day of the week. For example, every Wednesday at 2:00 PM. | Every hour |
Short-term trend | 1 hour | Metric values from each minute in one hour. | Every 30 seconds |
Here are some important considerations about adding a baseline to a chart:
- Dynamic baselines calculate and store baseline data. Therefore, creating a baseline consumes system resources, and configuring too many baselines might degrade system performance.
- Deleting or modifying a dynamic baseline can delete dynamic baseline data from the system.
- Detail metrics, also referred to as topnsets, are unsupported. Sampleset, maximum rate, and minimum rate metrics are also unsupported. If any of these types of metrics are selected in your chart, you will be unable to generate a dynamic baseline for this data.
- The system can begin building a dynamic baseline only if the necessary amount of historical data is available. For example, an Hour of day baseline requires 10 days of historical data. If the system has only been collecting data for six days, the baseline does not begin plotting until it has four more days worth of data.
- The system does not retroactively plot a dynamic baseline for historical data. The system only plots a dynamic baseline for new data.
- If two identical dynamic baselines exist in separate dashboards, the dashboards reuse the baseline data; however, the baselines must be identical. If you select a new baseline type, the new dynamic baseline will not share data with the previous dynamic baseline.
The following steps show you how to add a dynamic baseline to an existing dashboard chart:
Add a static threshold line to a chart
Displaying a static threshold line in a chart can help you determine which data points are either below or above a significant value.
For example, you can create a line chart for server processing time to help you monitor the performance of an important database in your network environment. By adding a threshold line that defines a service level agreement (SLA) boundary of acceptable processing time, you can see when database performance is slowing down and address the issue.
You can add one or more threshold lines as you edit a chart with the Metric Explorer. These lines are local to the chart and not associated with other widgets or alerts. Threshold lines are only available for area, candlestick, column, line, line & column, and status charts.
The following steps show you how to add a static threshold line to an existing dashboard chart:
Display device group members in a chart
If you have a chart that displays a device group, you can view metrics by top devices in the group, instead of viewing a single value for the entire device group. Drilling down by group member in the Metric Explorer lets you view up to 20 devices in the chart.
If you see fewer groups members in a chart than the number of results you specified, this could be because you selected a built-in device group with a small number of devices. For built-in device groups, devices are dynamically placed into a group based on the type of protocol traffic they are associated with or the role they are assigned.
Before you begin
Create a chart that contains a device group as the selected source. Save the chart to a dashboard.Regular expression filters
Filter your search results by writing regular expression (regex) strings in certain search fields throughout the ExtraHop system. For example, you can filter for parameters in a detail metric key, such as a number within an IP address. You can also filter by excluding specific keys or a combination of keys from charts.
- Search fields with an asterisk
- Click the asterisk to enable regex strings.
This type of field is available from the following system pages:- Filtering a table of devices
- Creating filter criteria for a dynamic device group
- Certain search fields with a trifield operator
- Click the operator drop-down to select the regex option.
This type of field is available from the following system page:- Editing a chart in Metric Explorer
- Certain search fields with a tooltip
- Hover over the tooltip in the field to see when regex is required.
This type of field is available from the following system page:- Adding record relationships to a custom metric
The following table includes examples of standard regex syntax.
Chart Scenario | Regex filter | How it works |
---|---|---|
Compare HTTP status codes 200 to 404. | (200|404) | The vertical bar symbol ( | ) is the OR operator. This filter matches 200, or 404, or both status codes. |
Display any HTTP status code that contains a 4. | [41] | Square brackets ( [ and ] ) designate a range of characters. The filter searches for every character inside the brackets, regardless of order. This filter matches any value that contains a 4 or a 1. For example, this filter can return 204, 400, 101, or 201 status codes. |
Display all 500-level HTTP status codes. | ^[5] | The caret symbol ( ^ ) outside square brackets ( [ and ] ) means "starts with." This filter matches any value that begins with a 5. For example, this filter can return 500 and 502 status codes. |
Display all 400 and 500-level HTTP status codes. | ^[45] | Multiple values inside square brackets ( [ and ] ) are searched individually, even when preceded by the caret symbol ( ^ ). This filter does not search for values that begin with 45, but matches all values that begin with a 4 or 5. For example, this filter can return 400, 403, and 500 status codes. |
Display any HTTP status codes except 200-level status codes. | ^(?!2) | A question mark ( ? ) and exclamation point ( ! ) inside parentheses specify a value to exclude. This filter matches all values except values beginning with a 2. For example, this filter can return 400, 500, and 302 status codes. |
Display any IP address with a 187. | 187. | Matches 1, 8, and 7 characters in the IP address. This filter will not return IP addresses that end in 187 because the trailing period designates that something must come after the values. If you want to search the period as a literal value, you must precede it with a backslash ( \ ). |
Review all IP addresses containing 187.18. | 187\.18. | Matches 187.18 and anything that follows. The first period is treated literally because it is preceded by a backslash ( \ ). The second period is treated as a wildcard. For example, this filter returns results for 187.18.0.0, 180.187.0.0, or 187.180.0.0/16. This filter does not return an address that ends with 187.18, because the wildcard requires that characters follow the specified values. |
Display any IP address except 187.18.197.150. | ^(?!187\.18\.197\.150) | Matches anything except 187.18.197.150, where ^(?!) specifies the value to exclude. |
Exclude a list of specific IP addresses. | ^(?!187\.18\.197\.15[012]) | Matches anything except 187.18.197.150, 187.18.197.151, and 187.18.197.152, where ^(?!) specifies the value to exclude and the square brackets ( [ and ] ) specify multiple values. |
Additional filters
When you create a custom detail metric from the Metric Catalog, you can add advanced regex syntax to the Additional Filters search field in the Record Relationships section.
The regex syntax in this field must meet the following requirements:
- If your key contains multiple values, your regex syntax must include a
single capture group. A capture group is designated by parenthesis. Your
capture group determines the filter value.
- If you want to return a specific value from a detail metric key that
contains multiple record field values, the regex must follow this syntax:
$KEY:/<regex>/
For example, if your detail metric key is ipaddr:host:cipher and you only want to return the IP address value, you would type the following:
$KEY:/^([^:]+):.+/
- If your key contains multiple record field values, the values are separated by a delimiter that is specified in the trigger that is generating the key. The placement of the delimiters in your regex syntax must match the delimiters in the detail key. For example, if you have a key with three values that are separated by a delimiter that is a colon, the three values for the key in your regex syntax must be separated by two colons.
Tip: | If you want to return all record field values in a detail metric key, type $KEY. For example, if your detail metric key is ipaddr:host:cipher, type $KEY in the search field to return all three of those field record values (IP address, hostname, and SSL cipher suite). |
Find all devices talking to external IP addresses
The following steps show you how to find all of the external IP addresses that your internal devices are talking to. You can then see if any devices are making or receiving unauthorized connections from other devices outside of your network.
Tip: | By default, any device with an RFC1918 IP address (included in a 10/8, 172.16/12, or 192.168/16 CIDR block) that the ExtraHop system automatically discovers is classified as an internal device. Because some network environments include non-RFC1918 IP addresses as part of their internal network, you can specify the locality of an IP address on the Network Localities page. |
Monitor a device for external IP address connections
If you have an authentication server or database that should not connect to IP addresses outside of your internal network, you can create a value chart in a dashboard that tracks External Accepted and External Connected metrics. From your dashboard, you can then monitor the number of external connections for a specific device.
Tip: | By default, any device with an RFC1918 IP address (included in a 10/8, 172.16/12, or 192.168/16 CIDR block) that the ExtraHop system automatically discovers is classified as an internal device. Because some network environments include non-RFC1918 IP addresses as part of their internal network, you can specify the locality of an IP address on the Network Localities page. |
The following steps show you how to create a value chart for these TCP metrics and then add the chart to a dashboard.
Next steps
Share a dashboardCompare time intervals to find the metric delta
Comparing metric data between two time intervals helps you see the difference, or the delta, in metric data side-by-side in the same chart. If you create a comparison and navigate to another area of the ExtraHop system, the comparison is disabled temporarily. When you return to your original page, the comparison you saved is enabled again.
Sort metrics
On an application protocol page, if a metrics section on a protocol page contains a gear icon in the upper right corner, the metrics in that section can be sorted by key or value.
- Navigate to a protocol page by clicking Assets and then select an application.
- Click the gear icon.
- Select Sort by Key or Sort by Value.
Create a chart from a protocol page
Protocol pages contain a large amount of metrics and data. While you cannot modify the charts on protocol pages, you can create a copy of an interesting chart on a protocol page and then add the copied chart to a dashboard. Your dashboard can be then modified and shared with other team members.
Next steps
Assets
All of the metric activity collected from the data on your network is logically grouped into sections on the Assets page, where you can navigate to find the data you need.
Devices
Devices, also known as assets and endpoints, are objects on your network with a MAC address or IP address that have been automatically discovered and classified by the ExtraHop system. Assign any device to a chart, alert, or trigger as a metric source. Learn more about Devices.
Device Groups
Device groups are user-defined sets of devices that can be collectively assigned as a metric source to a chart, alert, or trigger. You can create a dynamic device group that adds devices that matches your specified criteria or you can create a static device group and manually add or remove devices. The ExtraHop system also includes built-in dynamic device groups by role and by protocol activity that you can assign as a metric source. Click a role or protocol link from the Devices page to view metrics for a built-in device group.
Users
The Users page displays a list of all active users found on your network and the devices the user logged in to. The user name is extracted from the authentication protocol, such as LDAP or Active Directory. Search for devices accessed by a specific user.
Note: | These users are not associated with user accounts for the ExtraHop system. |
Applications
Applications are user-defined containers that represent distributed systems on your network. Create an application to view all of the metric activity associated with your website trafficāweb transactions, DNS requests and responses, and database transactions. See the Applications FAQ.
Basic applications that filter built-in metrics by protocol activity can be created through the ExtraHop system. Complex applications that collect custom metrics or metrics from non-L7 traffic must be created through a trigger, which requires JavaScript code. Learn more about building Triggers.
Devices
The ExtraHop system automatically discovers and classifies devices, also known as endpoints, that are actively communicating over your network, such as clients, servers, routers, load balancers, and gateways. Each device receives the highest level of analysis available, based on your system configuration.
The ExtraHop system can discover and track devices by their MAC address (L2 Discovery) or by their IP addresses (L3 Discovery). Enabling L2 Discovery offers the advantage of tracking metrics for a device even if the IP address is changed or reassigned through a DHCP request. If L3 Discovery is enabled, it is important to know that devices might not have a one-to-one correlation to the physical devices in your environment. For example, if a single physical device has multiple active network interfaces, that device is identified as multiple devices by the ExtraHop system.
After a device is discovered, the ExtraHop system begins to collect metrics based on the analysis level configured for that device. The analysis level determines the types of metrics that are generated and which features are available for organizing metric data.
Navigating devices
Click Assets from the top menu and then click Devices to display the following charts that provide insight about the active devices discovered on your network during the selected time interval:
- Active Devices
- Displays the total number of devices that have been discovered by the ExtraHop system. Click the number to view a list of all discovered devices. From the Active Devices list, you can search for specific devices or click a device name to view device details on the Device Overview page.
- New Devices
- Displays the number of devices that have been discovered within the past month and the percentage rate of change. Click the number to view a list of all of these devices.
- Devices by Role
- Displays each device role and the number of devices assigned to each role that is active during the specified time interval. Click a device role to see a built-in Device Group Overview page that includes metric data, peer IPs, and protocol activity for that group of devices. You can also add additional filter criteria and save the group as a new dynamic device group.
- Devices by Protocol Activity
- Displays a list of protocol activity found on your network. Click a protocol name or device count to see a built-in Device Group Overview page with specific metric charts about that protocol activity. Click an activity map to see all device-to-device connections. You can also add additional filter criteria and save the group as a new dynamic device group.
Device Overview page
By clicking on a device name, you can view all of the information discovered about the device by the ExtraHop system on the Device Overview page. The Device Overview page is divided into three sections: a top-level summary, a properties panel, and an activity panel.
Device summary
The device summary provides information such as the device name, the current IP address or MAC address, and the role assigned to the device. If viewing from a console, the name of the site associated with the device is also displayed.
- Click Records to start a record query that is filtered by this device.
- Click Packets to start a packet query that is filtered by this device.
Device properties
The device properties section provides the following known attributes and assignments for the device.
- High Value Device
- A high value icon appears if the ExtraHop system observed the device providing authentication or essential services; you can also manually specify a device as high value. Risk scores are increased for detections on high value devices.
- IP Addresses
- A list of IP addresses observed on the device at any time during the selected time interval. If L2 Discovery is enabled, the list might display both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses that are simultaneously observed on the device, or the list might display multiple IP addresses assigned through DHCP requests at different times. A timestamp indicates when the IP address was last observed on the device. Click an IP address to view other devices where the IP address has been seen.
- Associated IP Addresses
- A list of IP addresses, usually outside of the network, that are associated with the device at any time during the selected time interval. For example, a VPN client on your network might be associated with an external IP address on the public internet. A timestamp indicates when the IP address was last associated with the device. Click an associated IP address to view details such as the geographic location and other devices the IP address has been associated with.
- Cloud Instance Properties
-
The following cloud instance properties appear for the device when you configure the properties through the REST API:
- Cloud Account
- Cloud Instance Type
- Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)
- Subnet
- Cloud Instance Name (appears in the Known Alias property)
- Cloud Instance Description (instance metadata appears automatically for devices in Flow Analysis)
See Add cloud instance properties through the ExtraHop API Explorer for more information.
- Users
- A list of authenticated users logged into the device. Click a user name to go to the Users page and view which other devices the user is logged into.
- Known Aliases
- A list of alternative device
names and the source program or protocol.
Note: Multiple DNS names are supported. - Hardware and Software
- The hardware or vendor make and model of the device and any operating
systems running on the device.
The ExtraHop system observes the network traffic on devices to automatically determine the vendor make and model, or you can manually assign a new make and model.
Tip: (CrowdStrike integration on Reveal(x) 360 only) Click links from CrowdStrike devices to view device details in CrowdStrike Falcon and initiate containment of CrowdStrike devices that are participants in a security detection. - Tags
- The tags assigned to the device. Click a tag name to view the other devices that the tag is assigned to.
- First and Last Seen
- The timestamps from when the device was first discovered and when activity was last observed on the device. NEW appears if the device was discovered within the last five days
- Analysis
- The level of analysis that this device receives.
Here are some ways you can view and modify device properties:
- Click View Groups to view the device group membership for the device.
- Click Edit Properties to view or modify device properties such as device role, device group memberships, or device tags.
- Click Edit Assignments to view or modify which alerts and triggers are assigned to the device.
Device activity
The device activity section provides information about how the device is communicating with other devices and which detections and alerts are associated with the device.
- Click Traffic to view charts for protocol and peer data,
and then drill
down on metrics in traffic charts.
Note: Traffic charts are not available if the device analysis level is Discovery Mode. To enable traffic charts for the device, elevate the device to Advanced Analysis or Standard Analysis. - Click Detections to view a list of detections, and then click a detection name to view detection details.
- Click Similar Devices to view a list of devices with similar network traffic behavior observed by machine-learning analysis. Similar devices can help you gain insight into normal device behavior when threat hunting. This tab is only displayed if there are similar devices associated with the device.
- Click Alerts to view a list of alerts, and then click an alert name to view alert details. This tab is only displayed if there are alerts associated with the device.
- Click Peer Devices to view an activity map, which is a visual representation of the L4-L7 protocol activity between devices in your network. To modify the activity map with additional filters and steps, click Open Activity Map.
Tip: | You can bookmark the Device Overview page to a specific activity view
by setting the tab URL parameter to one of the following values:
For example, the following URL always displays detection activity for the specified device: https://example-eda/extrahop/#/metrics/devices//0026b94c03810000/overview/&tab=detections |
IP address details
Type an IP address in the global search field or click an IP address link from a Device Overview page to view details about an IP address.
The following information appears for an IP address seen on a device:
- Each device where the IP address is currently observed, regardless of the selected time interval.
- Each device where the IP address was previously observed within the selected time interval, including the timestamp from when the IP address was last seen on the device.
If L2 Discovery is enabled, both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses might be simultaneously observed on the device, or different IP addresses might be assigned to the device by DHCP over time.
The following information appears for an IP address associated with a device:
- The geolocation of the IP address and links to the ARIN Whois website.
- Each device where the associated IP address was seen outside of the network at any time during the selected time interval. For example, a VPN client on your network might be associated with an external IP address on the public internet.
- Any cloud services associated with the IP address.
- The IP address of the device as seen by the ExtraHop system on your network.
- The timestamp when the associated IP address was last seen on the device.
Here are some ways you can view additional IP address and device information:
- Hover over a device name to view device properties.
- Click a device name to view the Device Overview page.
- Click Search for Records to start a record query that is filtered by the IP .
- Click Search for Packets to start a packet query that is filtered by this device.
Grouping devices
Both custom devices and device groups are ways that you can aggregate your device metrics. Custom devices are user-created devices that collect metrics based on specified criteria, while device groups gather metrics for all of the specified devices in a group. With device groups, you can still view metrics for each individual device or group member. The metrics for a custom device are collected and displayed as if for a single deviceāyou cannot view individual device metrics.
Both device groups and custom devices can dynamically aggregate metrics based on your specified criteria. We recommend selecting reliable criteria, such as the device IP address, MAC address, VLAN, tag, or type. While you can select devices by their name, if the DNS name is not automatically discovered, the device is not added.
Ā | Device Groups | Custom Devices |
---|---|---|
Criteria |
|
|
Performance cost | Comparatively low. Because device groups only combine metrics that have already been calculated, there is a relatively low effect on metric collection. However, a high number of device groups with a large number of devices and complex criteria will take more time to process. | Comparatively high. Because the metrics for custom devices are aggregated based on user-defined criteria, large numbers of custom devices, or custom devices with extremely broad criteria, require more processing. Custom devices also increase the number of system objects to which metrics are committed. |
View individual device metrics | Yes | No |
Best practices | Create for local devices where you want to view and compare the metrics in a single chart. Device groups can be set as a metric source. | Create for devices that are outside of your local network, or for types of traffic that you want to organize as a single source. For example, you might want to define all physical interfaces on a server as a single custom device to better view metrics for that server as a whole. |
Custom devices
Custom devices enable you to collect metrics for devices that are outside of your local network or when you have a group of devices that you want to aggregate metrics for as a single device. These devices can even be different physical interfaces that are located on the same device; aggregating the metrics for these interfaces can make it easier to understand how heavily taxed your physical resources are as a whole, rather than by interface.
You might create a custom device to track individual devices outside of your local broadcast domain or to collect metrics about several known IP addresses or CIDR blocks from a remote site or cloud service. You can collect remote site metrics for custom devices to learn how remote locations consume services and to gain visibility into traffic between remote sites and a data center. See the Protocol Metrics Reference for a full list of remote site metrics and descriptions.
After you create a custom device, all of the metrics associated with the IP addresses and ports are aggregated into a single device that collects L2-L7 metrics. A single custom device counts as one device towards your licensed capacity for Advanced Analysis or Standard Analysis, which enables you to add a custom device to the watchlist. Any triggers or alerts are also assigned to the custom device as a single device.
While custom devices aggregate metrics based on their defined criteria, the metric calculations are not treated the same as for discovered devices. For example, you might have a trigger assigned to a custom device that commits records to a recordstore. However, the custom device is not shown as either a client or a server in any transaction records. The ExtraHop system populates those attributes with the device that corresponds to the conversation on the wire data.
Custom devices can affect the overall system performance, so you should avoid the following configurations:
- Avoid creating multiple custom devices for the same IP addresses or ports. Custom devices that are configured with overlapping criteria might degrade system performance.
- Avoid creating a custom device for a broad range of IP addresses or ports, which might degrade system performance.
If a large number of custom devices is affecting your system performance, you can delete or disable a custom device. The unique Discovery ID for the custom device always remains in the system. See Create a custom device to monitor remote office traffic to familiarize yourself with custom devices.
Device groups
A device group is a user-defined collection that can help you track metrics across multiple devices that are typically grouped by shared attributes such as protocol activity.
You can create a static device group that requires you to manually add or remove a device from the group. Or, you can create a dynamic device group that includes criteria that determines which devices are automatically included in the group. For example, you can create a dynamic device group based on the device discovery time that adds devices that are discovered during a specific time interval.
By default, the Device Group page includes the following dynamic device groups that you can overwrite or delete:
- New Devices (Last 24 Hours)
- Includes assets and endpoints that were first seen by the ExtraHop system over the last 24 hours.
- New Devices (Last 7 Days)
- Includes assets and endpoints that were first seen by the ExtraHop system over the last 7 days.
The ExtraHop system also includes built-in dynamic device groups by role and by protocol. You can assign built-in device groups as a metric source for objects such as charts, alerts, triggers, and activity maps. You cannot overwrite or delete a built-in device group, but you can add filter criteria and save it as a new device group.
From the Devices page, click a device count for a role or protocol, such as Domain Controller or CIFS clients, to view the Device Group Overview page. Clicking the filter at the top of the page enables you to add additional criteria and update the page data on demand instead of requiring you to create a device group.
There is no performance impact to collecting metrics with device groups. However, we recommend that you prioritize these groups by their importance to make sure that the right devices receive the highest level of analysis.
Device groups are a good choice when you have devices that you want to collectively apply as a source. For example, you could collect and display metrics for all of your high-priority production web servers in a dashboard.
By creating a device group, you can manage all of those devices as a single metric source instead of adding them to your charts as individual sources. However, note that any assigned triggers or alerts are assigned to each group member (or individual device).
Device names and roles
After a device is discovered, the ExtraHop system tracks all of the traffic associated with the device to determine the device name and role.
Device names
The ExtraHop system discovers device names by passively monitoring naming protocols, including DNS, DHCP, NETBIOS, and Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP).
If a name is not discovered through a naming protocol, the default name is derived from device attributes, such as MAC addresses and IP addresses. For some devices discovered on flow sensors, the ExtraHop system assigns names based on the role of the device such as Internet Gateway or Amazon DNS Server. You can also create a custom name or set a cloud instance name for a device.
A device can be identified by multiple names, which appear as Known Aliases on the Device Overview page. If a device has multiple names, the order of priority for the default display name is the custom name followed by the cloud instance name, the DHCP name, the public DNS name, and then other naming protocols. You can search by any name to find a device.
Note: | Custom names are not synchronized across connected ExtraHop systems. For example, a custom name created on a sensor is not available from a connected console. |
If a device name does not include a hostname, the ExtraHop system has not yet observed naming protocol traffic associated with that device. The ExtraHop system does not perform DNS lookups for device names.
Device roles
Based on the type of traffic associated with the device or the device model, the ExtraHop system automatically assigns a role to the device, such as a gateway, file server, database, or load balancer. The Other role gets assigned to devices that cannot be identified.
A device can only be assigned one role at a time. You can manually change a device role, or the ExtraHop system might re-assign a different role if observed traffic and behavior changes. For example, if a PC has been repurposed into a Web server, you might change the role immediately, or the change might be observed over time and the role updated by the system.
The ExtraHop system identifies the following roles:
Icon | Role | Description |
---|---|---|
Custom Device | A user-created device that collects metrics based on specified criteria. The ExtraHop system automatically assigns this role when you create a custom device. You cannot manually assign the Custom role to a device. | |
Database | A device that primarily hosts a database instance. | |
DHCP Server | A device that primarily processes DHCP server activity. | |
DNS Server | A device that primarily processes DNS server activity. | |
Domain Controller | A device that acts as a domain controller for Kerberos, CIFS, and MSRPC server activity. | |
File Server | A device that responds to read and write requests for files over NFS and CIFS/SMB protocols. | |
Firewall | A device that monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic and blocks traffic according to security rules. The ExtraHop system does not automatically assign this role to devices. | |
Gateway | A device that acts as a router or gateway. The ExtraHop system looks for devices associated with a large amount of unique IP addresses (past a certain threshold) when identifying gateways. Gateway device names include the router name such as Cisco B1B500. Unlike other L2 parent devices, you can add a gateway device to the watchlist for Advanced Analysis. | |
IP Camera | A device that sends image and video data through the network. The ExtraHop system assigns this role based on the device model. | |
Load Balancer | A device that acts as a reverse proxy for distributing traffic across multiple servers. | |
Medical Device | A device designed for healthcare needs and medical environments. The ExtraHop system might assign this role if a device is a known medical make and model or if the device processes DICOM traffic. | |
Mobile Device | A device that has a mobile operating system installed, such as iOS or Android. | |
NAT Gateway | A device that acts as a Network Address Translation (NAT) gateway. The ExtraHop system might assign this role if a device is associated with four or more OS fingerprint families or with four or more hardware or vendor makes and models. After a device is assigned this role, device properties for software, hardware make and model, and authenticated users no longer appear for the device. | |
PC | A device such as a laptop, desktop, Windows VM, or macOS device that processes DNS, HTTP, and SSL client traffic. | |
Printer | A device that enables users to print text and graphics from other connected devices. The ExtraHop system assigns this role based on the device model or on traffic observed over mDNS (multicast DNS). | |
VoIP Phone | A device that manages voice over IP (VoIP) phone calls. | |
VPN Client | An internal device that communicates with a remote IP address. If VPN client discovery is enabled, the ExtraHop system automatically assigns this role to internal devices communicating with remote IP addresses through a VPN gateway. You cannot manually assign the VPN Client role to a device. | |
VPN Gateway | A device that connects two or more VPN devices or networks together to bridge remote connections. The ExtraHop system assigns this role to devices with a large number of external VPN peers if automatic classification for this role is enabled in the running configuration. | |
Vulnerability Scanner | A device that runs vulnerability scanner programs. | |
Web Proxy Server | A device that processes HTTP requests between a device and another server. | |
Web Server | A device that primarily hosts web resources and responds to HTTP requests. | |
Wi-Fi Access Point | A device that creates a wireless local area network and projects a wireless network signal to a designated area. The ExtraHop system assigns this role based on the device model. |
Find a device
The ExtraHop system automatically discovers devices such as clients, servers, routers, load balancers, and gateways that are actively communicating with other devices over the wire. You can search for a specific device on the system and then view traffic and protocol metrics on a protocol page.
There are several ways to search for a device:
Find a device from a global search
You can search for devices from the global search field at the top of the page. Global search compares a search term to multiple device properties such as the hostname, IP address, known alias, vendor, tag, description, and device group. For example, if you search for the term vm, the search results might display devices that include vm in the device name, device vendor, or device tag.
Search for a device by details
You can search for devices by information observed over the wire, such as IP address, MAC address, hostname, or protocol activity. You can also search for devices by customized information such as device tags.
The trifield search filter enables you to search by multiple categories at once. For example, you can add filters for device name, IP address, and role to view results for devices that match all of the specified criteria.
Next steps
- Click a device name to view device properties and metrics on the Device Overview page.
- Click Create Dynamic Group from the upper right corner to create a dynamic device group based on the filter criteria.
- Click the command menu and then select PDF or CSV to export the device list to a file.
Search for devices by protocol activity
The Devices page displays all protocols that are actively communicating on the ExtraHop system during the selected time interval. You can quickly locate a device that is associated with a protocol, or discover a decommissioned device that is still actively communicating over a protocol.
Search for devices accessed by a specific user
From the Users page, you can see active users and the devices they have logged in to the ExtraHop system during the specified time interval.
Tip: | You can also search for users from the global search field at the top
of the page. |
This procedure shows you how to perform a search from the Users page.
Search for peer devices
If you want to know which devices are actively talking to each other, you can drill down by Peer IPs from a device or device group protocol page.
Change a device name
The ExtraHop system automatically names devices by passively monitoring naming protocol traffic (DNS, DHCP, NETBIOS, CDP). If naming protocol traffic is not observed for a device, the device name displays either the IP address or the MAC address. In either condition, you can change the automatic device name to a custom name. The custom name will appear throughout the ExtraHop system.
- Custom names are not synchronized across connected ExtraHop systems. For example, a custom name created on a sensor is not available from a connected console.
- The ExtraHop system does not perform DNS lookups for device names. The ExtraHop system derives the DNS name for a device by observing DNS traffic over wire data. For more information, see Device discovery.
Change a device role
The ExtraHop system automatically discovers and classifies devices on your network based on the protocol activity or device model and assigns a role to each device, such as a gateway, file server, database, or load balancer. You can change the role assigned to a device at anytime.
- After you change the device role, the device might be removed from or added to dynamic device groups that include a device role as criteria.
- Device role changes are not synchronized across connected ExtraHop systems. For example, if you change a device role on a sensor, the role is not changed from a connected console.
Change a device model
The ExtraHop system observes the network traffic on devices to automatically determine the vendor make and model, but you can manually change the device model.
Here are some important considerations about changing a device model:
- Devices are automatically added and removed from dynamic device groups with criteria based on device models.
- You can change a device model from sensors and consoles. When the device is updated on a console, the change is synchronized to connected sensors. However, the change is not synchronized from individual sensors to the connected console.
Before you begin
You must have full write privileges or higher.Manually identify a device as high value
While the ExtraHop system automatically identifies devices that provide authentication or essential services as high value, you can also manually identify a device as high value or not.
- Risk scores are increased for detections on high value devices.
- Devices are automatically added and removed from dynamic device groups with criteria based on high value.
- You can manually identify high value devices from sensors and consoles. When the device is updated on a console, the change is synchronized to connected sensors. However, the change is not synchronized from individual sensors to the connected console.
Before you begin
You must have full write privileges or higher.Create a device tag
Tags are user-defined labels that you can attach to a device. Tags can help differentiate devices on the ExtraHop system that share a common attribute or characteristic. You can then search for devices or create dynamic device groups based on the device tag.
Note: | You cannot rename a device tag after it is created. |
Note: | You can also automate this task through the REST API. |
Create a device group
You can create both dynamic and static device groups. Dynamic groups automatically add all devices that match specified criteria to the group, while static groups require you to manually add each device.
Create a dynamic device group
Tip: | You can
quickly create a dynamic device group from a filtered list of devices on the Devices
page. Click Create Dynamic Group from the upper right
corner. You can also create a dynamic device group from a built-in device group. From the Devices page, click a role or protocol, update the filter criteria, and then click the Save icon from the upper right corner. |
Create a custom device
Collect metrics for a segment of traffic across multiple IP addresses and ports by creating a custom device. Custom devices are useful for monitoring traffic outside of your local broadcast domain, such as branch offices, stores, or clinics.
Here are some important considerations about custom devices:
- Custom devices only appear in the ExtraHop system after traffic that matches your specified criteria is observed.
- Avoid creating multiple custom devices for the same IP addresses or ports. Custom devices that are configured with overlapping criteria might degrade system performance.
- Avoid creating a custom device for a broad range of IP addresses or ports, which might degrade system performance.
- A single custom device counts as one device towards your licensed capacity for Advanced Analysis and Standard Analysis.
- You can also automate this task through the REST API.
Before you begin
You must have full write privileges or higher.Delete or disable a custom device
Custom devices are manually created on an ExtraHop system to collect metrics for traffic observed across multiple IP addresses and ports. If a large number of custom devices is affecting your system performance, you can delete or disable a custom device.
Before you begin
Full privileges or higher are required to create or delete a custom device.- When you delete or disable a custom device, the device becomes inactive, which means that the system stops collecting metrics for that device.
- When you delete or disable a custom device, the device continues to appear as an asset until all metrics collected for that device are overwritten in the local datastore.
- When you delete a custom device, the unique Discovery ID for the custom device always remains in the system and cannot be applied to a new custom device.
Configure remote sites for custom devices
Custom devices are useful for monitoring traffic outside of your local broadcast domain, such as branch offices, stores, or clinics. You can collect remote site metrics about custom devices to easily learn how remote locations consume services and to gain visibility into traffic between remote sites and a data center.
For example, build a dashboard and add a custom device as the metric source to see remote site metrics such as inbound and outbound throughput, retransmission timeouts, round trip times, and zero windows. See the Protocol Metrics Reference for a full list of remote site metrics and descriptions.
Here are some important considerations about remote sites for custom devices:
- Remote site configuration applies to all enabled custom devices; you cannot configure remote sites for an individual custom device.
- Remote site metrics are only displayed in the Metric Catalog and the Metric Explorer if remote site metric collection is enabled.
Before you begin
You must have full write privileges or higher.- Log in to the ExtraHop system through https://<extrahop-hostname-or-IP-address>.
- Click the System Settings icon and then click Custom Devices.
- Click Configure Remote Sites.
- Select or clear the Collect remote site metrics checkbox.
- Click Save.
Classify IP addresses and trusted domains
By providing details about your network specifications, you can improve the metrics and detections generated by your ExtraHop system. The Network Locality page enables you to classify the locality of IP addresses and add trusted domains that your devices regularly connect to.
Note: | Network Locality settings must be configured on all sensors and consoles. For ExtraHop Reveal(x) 360, these settings are synchronized across all connected sensors; do not configure these settings on individual sensors. |
Before you begin
You must have full write privileges to change these settings.Specify the locality for IP addresses
By adding a CIDR block to the Network Localities page, you can classify traffic from these IP addresses as internal or external to your network.
- Log in to the ExtraHop system through https://<extrahop-hostname-or-IP-address>.
- Click the System Settings icon and then click Network Localities.
- Click Add a CIDR Block.
- In the Network field, type a single IP address or CIDR block. You must enter a unique range of IP addresses.
- Select Internal or External, based on which classification you want to apply to the CIDR block.
- (Optional): In the Description field, type information about why you are configuring the locality of this CIDR block.
- Click Save.
- To add more entries, click Add CIDR.
Next steps
Verify that the ExtraHop system no longer classifies an IP address as an external or internal by completing the following steps:- Click Assets at the top of the page. The Devices page appears, which lists all the protocols with traffic in the selected time interval.
- From Devices by Protocol Activity, click the device count for TCP. A protocol page appears that displays metrics for every device on your network with TCP activity.
- In the TCP Connections section, look for changes in the number of External Accepted and External Connected metrics. For example, if you classified a large CIDR block for a remote office as Internal, then the number of external connections should be lower.
Analysis priorities
The ExtraHop system analyzes traffic and collects data from all discovered devices on a single sensor. Each discovered device receives an analysis level that determines what data and metrics are collected for a device. Analysis priorities determine which analysis level a device receives.
Important: | Analysis priorities can be centrally managed from a console. |
Prioritizing devices and groups
The ExtraHop system can analyze hundreds of thousands of devices and automatically determine which analysis level each device receives, but you can control which devices are prioritized for Advanced and Standard Analysis.
Most devices can be added to a watchlist to ensure Advanced Analysis or you can add device groups to an ordered list to prioritize them for Advanced Analysis and Standard Analysis.
Here are some important considerations about prioritizing devices through the watchlist:
- Devices remain on the watchlist even when they are inactive, but metrics are not collected for inactive devices.
- The number of devices in the watchlist cannot exceed your Advanced Analysis capacity.
- Devices can only be added to the watchlist from a device properties page or the device list page. You cannot add devices to the watchlist from the Analysis Priorities page.
- If you want to add several devices to the watchlist, we recommend that you create a device group and then prioritize that group for Advanced Analysis.
- Devices receiving L2 Parent Analysis or Flow Analysis cannot be added to the watchlist.
Here are some important considerations about prioritizing devices groups:
- Order device groups from the highest to lowest priority in the list.
- Click-and-drag groups to change their order in the list.
- Make sure that each device in the group is active; groups that contain a large number of devices take up capacity and inactive devices do not generate metrics.
By default, the ExtraHop system automatically fills Advanced and Standard Analysis levels to maximum capacity. Here are some important considerations about capacity levels and the automatic fill option:
- Devices prioritized in the watchlist or through a prioritized group fill the higher analysis levels first, and then by the earliest-discovered devices.
- Devices are prioritized for Advanced Analysis if the device is associated with certain detections, if the device has accepted or initiated an external connection, or if the device is running common attack tools.
- Device properties such as the role, hardware and software, protocol activity, detection history, and high value can also determine analysis levels.
- The Automatically Fill option is enabled by default. If disabled, all devices that are not in prioritized groups or in the watchlist are removed and the ExtraHop system sets the priority for each device.
- Your ExtraHop subscription and license determine maximum capacity levels.
See the Analysis Priorities FAQ to learn about analysis level capacities.
Compare analysis levels
Analysis Level | Features | How to Receive this Level |
---|---|---|
Discovery Mode |
|
Devices automatically receive Discovery Mode if not in Standard, Advanced, or L2 Parent Analysis. |
Standard Analysis |
|
Prioritize device groups for Standard Analysis. |
Advanced Analysis |
|
Prioritize device groups for Advanced Analysis or add individual devices to the watchlist. |
L2 Parent Analysis (Only applicable if L3 Discovery is enabled) |
|
L2 parent devices automatically receive L2 Parent Analysis, except for gateways and routers. |
Flow Analysis |
|
Devices automatically receive Flow Analysis if discovered on a flow sensor. |
Transfer management of analysis priorities
By default, each packet sensor manages its own analysis priorities, which determine which devices receive Advanced Analysis or Standard Analysis. If your sensor is connected to a console, you can transfer priority management to that console for a centralized view of these settings.
Here are some important considerations about transferring management:
- You must have full write privileges to edit analysis priorities.
- After management is transferred to a console, any further changes you make on individual sensors are inactive. See which other settings are also transferred.
- Analysis Priorities settings are not available for flow sensors; management cannot be transferred.
The following steps show you how to transfer priority management to a console:
Tip: | To avoid analysis disruptions, you can save a draft of the analysis priorities settings for each sensor before transferring management to a console. |
Prioritize groups for Advanced Analysis
You can specify device groups for Advanced Analysis based on their importance to your network. Groups are ranked in an ordered list.
Here are some important considerations about Advanced Analysis:
- Devices on the watchlist are guaranteed Advanced Analysis and are prioritized over device groups.
- Devices within a device group that are inactive do not affect Advanced Analysis capacity.
- Custom metrics are only available for devices in Advanced Analysis. If you want to see custom metrics for a specific device, prioritize a group that contains the device or add the device to the watchlist.
- You must have full write privileges to edit analysis priorities.
Next steps
Here are some additional ways to manage and refine groups that receive Advanced Analysis:
- If you add multiple groups, the groups are prioritized from top to bottom. Click
the upper left icon next to Group, and then drag the group
to another position in the ordered list.
- Click the check icon to collapse the group. Click the pencil icon to
expand the group again, as shown in the following figure.
- Click the go to icon next to a group name to navigate to the device group page. The device group page displays which devices and how many devices are in the group. The icon is only available when the group is collapsed.
- Click the x icon to remove a group from the list, as shown in the following figure.
Prioritize groups for Standard Analysis
You can specify device groups for Standard Analysis based on their importance to your network. Groups are ranked in an ordered list.
Here are some important considerations about Standard Analysis:
- Devices prioritized for Standard Analysis section receive Advanced Analysis when there is capacity.
- You must have full write privileges to edit analysis priorities.
Next steps
Here are some additional ways to manage and refine groups that receive Standard Analysis:
- If you add multiple groups, the groups are prioritized from top to bottom. Click
the upper left icon next to Group, and then drag the group
to another position in the ordered list.
- Click the check icon to collapse the group. Click the pencil icon to expand the group again, as shown in the following figure.
- Click the go to icon next to a group name to navigate to the device group page. The device group page displays which devices and how many devices are in the group. The icon is only available when the group is collapsed.
- Click the x icon to remove a group from the list, as shown in the following figure.
Add a device to the watchlist
Add devices to the watchlist to ensure Advanced Analysis. You can add a custom device to the watchlist, but you cannot add an L2 parent device to the watchlist, unless the device is a gateway or router, and you cannot add a device in Flow Analysis. Devices stay on the watchlist whether they are inactive or active, but a device must be active for the ExtraHop system to collect Advanced Analysis metrics.
Tip: | Instead of adding several devices to the watchlist, create a device group and then
prioritize that
group for Advanced Analysis. Or add multiple devices to the watchlist
from the Device list page. Click the checkbox next to one or more devices and then
click the Add to Watchlist icon in the upper right corner. Learn more about Analysis Priorities. |
Remove a device from the watchlist
You can remove devices that are on the watchlist from the Analysis Priorities page.
Note: | It is possible to add devices to a blocklist, based on their unique MAC addresses, by modifying the running configuration file on the ExtraHop system. Contact your ExtraHop administrator to add devices to a blocklist. |
Activity maps
An activity map is a dynamic visual representation of the L4-L7 protocol activity between devices in your network. You can see a 2D or 3D layout of device connections in real-time to learn about the traffic flow and relationships between devices.
Activity maps can help you with the following use cases:
- Complete a data center or cloud migration
- As part of your migration strategy, you must determine which services can be turned off and when. An activity map helps you identify which devices are still connected so you can prevent unexpected service disruptions during the migration process. For more information, see the Plan and monitor your migration with activity maps walkthrough.
- Identify the root cause behind a slow application
- Applications often depend on multiple tiers of services within a network. An activity map can help you identify the delivery chain of traffic to your slow application server. Click a device to investigate related metrics, which can shed more light onto the root cause of the slow-down.
- Track suspicious devices or unexpected connections
- During a security event, an activity map can help you identify affected devices by tracking the real-time east-west traffic associated with a suspicious device. As part of a daily security monitoring strategy, you can create an activity map to confirm that devices are not making unexpected connections with other devices.
Here are some important considerations about activity maps:
- You can create activity maps for devices in Advanced, Standard, L2 Parent Analysis, and Flow Analysis. You cannot create an activity map for devices in Discovery Mode. For more information, see Analysis priorities.
- If you create an activity map for a device or device group that has no protocol activity during the selected time interval, the map appears without any data. Change the time interval or your origin selection and try again.
- You can create an activity map from a console to view device connections across all of your sensors.
- You can save and share an activity map , granting view or edit access to other system users or groups. You can also load a saved activity map to modify map properties.
For more information about activity maps, see the Activity Maps FAQ.
Navigate activity maps
After creating an activity map, you can start investigating data. The following sections provide details about how to interact with an activity map and find information about the data you are viewing.
Layout
Devices are represented by circles and connections are represented by lines.
The placement of devices is optimized to display information. The layout can change as data about device activity is updated in real-time. For example, the layout is updated as new connections are observed or devices become inactive.
Note: | When the time interval in the upper left corner of the page is set to Last 30 minutes, Last 6 hours, or Last 1 day, activity map data continually updates every minute with real-time data. Set a custom time interval with a specific start and end time to stop real-time layout updates. |
2D or 3D layout
By default, activity maps are displayed in a 2D layout, but you can click 3D to change the display to a rotating 3D model. For example, you might want to showcase 3D maps on a large screen in a network or security operations center.
Reposition, rotate, and zoom
Zoom in and out of a map with controls located in the bottom right corner of the page or zoom with your mouse wheel. Click-and-drag your mouse to reposition a 2D map or rotate a 3D map.
Labels and icons
Circle labels contain details such as the device hostname, IP address, or MAC address.
Line labels contain protocol names associated with the device connection and the direction of traffic flowing between the devices, which is displayed as animated pulses. Specific device roles are represented by an icon.
To optimize the display of information, not every label is displayed. Hover over any circle or line to display its label, as shown in the following figure.
Note: | Device roles are automatically assigned to a device based on the type of traffic the ExtraHop system observes for that device. For more information, see Change a device role. |
Circle and line size
The size of objects in the map corresponds with a metric value, which helps to highlight
areas of increased activity, such as the number of bytes, or traffic volume, associated with a
device connection.
At the bottom of the left pane, you can select a different metric for map elements:
Bytes: See all of the devices transmitting or receiving data during the time interval.
Connections: See only the devices that have established a new connection at least once during the time interval.
TCP Turns: See only the devices that switched between transmitting and receiving data at least once during the time interval.
Color
Blue and gray are default colors for circles and lines. These default colors are optimized to display information in a map. However, you can apply different colors to your map to highlight the severity level of an alert or show when a device connection was established.
Detections
Detections associated with a device on the map appear around the circle as animated pulses, known as detection markers. The color of the pulse is red if the device is the offender and teal if the device is the victim of the detection. The participant status also appears on the device label.
Note: | Machine learning detections require a connection to ExtraHop Cloud Services. |
Click a circle with a detection marker to view and navigate to associated detections or the Device Overview page.
If detection markers do not appear on your activity maps as expected, detection markers might be disabled. You can enable or disable detection markers from the User menu.
Alert status
To see the severity level of an alert for a device in your map, select Display alert status in the lower left corner or the page, as shown in the following figure. The circle color then corresponds to the most severe status for all alerts assigned to a device during the time interval. If there is no alert assigned to a device or the alert level is informational, the default circle color is green.
To investigate the alert, click the circle and then select the device name in the Go to Deviceā¦ section. On the device's protocol page, scroll down to view the Alerts page.
Time interval comparison
When you compare two time intervals to find metric deltas, different colors in the map help you determine when device connections were established or when the protocol activity for a device changed. For example, after creating a comparison between Yesterday and the Last 30 minutes, new device connections or activity that only appear in the more recent time interval appear green. Previous device connections or activity that only appear in the earlier time interval are red. Devices connections that did not change between time intervals are blue. In the following figure, new connections that were established in the last thirty minutes are represented by green circles and lines.Note: | If all the devices are a single color, such as green, this means that the query did not produce results in the earlier time interval. For example, the origin device did not have any protocol activity in the earlier time interval. |
Add steps and filters to a map
A step is a level of connections between devices. Devices in each step have a
relationship to devices in previous step. These relationship are defined by their protocol
activity.
Add a new step to an activity map to add another layer of information to your map. Click the drop-down list for a particular step, and then select a protocol activity.
You can also filter devices in a step by their group membership. For example, if you select HTTP Servers but only want to see your test servers in the map, you can filter HTTP Servers by a device group, such as My Test Servers.
For more information on how to add steps and filters to a map, see Create an activity map.
Manage activity maps
The following options for managing your activity map are available from the command menu in the upper right corner:
- Save and share an activity map
- Load and manage a saved activity map
- Export activity map as a PDF, PNG, or SVG file
Best practices for investigating activity map data
If you find a device on your map that is worth investigating, you have several options to gather more information about that device.
- Find recently-connected devices
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Click the time interval in the top left corner of the page and click Compare. You can see how device connections changed between two different time intervals.
For more information, see Time interval comparison.
- Navigate to protocol pages to find related metric activity
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Click a circle or line to access a drop-down menu as shown in the following figure.
Select the device name from the menu to view the Device Overview page. From the left pane, click a protocol name to view the protocol page, which contains a summary of important protocol metrics that were observed and associated with the device. From a protocol page, you can find related metrics such as errors, requests, responses, and server processing time. You can also drill down on a metric from a protocol page to view metric details, such as server IP address, client IP address, status codes, methods, and URIs.
- Navigate to detections identified on the device
- Devices on an activity map that have associated detections are displayed as animated
pulses around the circle label. Click a circle with this detection marker to access a
drop-down menu, as shown in the following figure.
Select a detection name from the menu to navigate to the detail page for that detection. The detail page contains information about the type of detection that occurred and what it means, as well as when the detection occurred and the duration of the issue. For more information, see Detection detail page.
- Search for transaction records associated with a connection (Requires a configured recordstore)
- Click a circle or line to access the drop-down menu. Click Records. A records query page opens and displays all the records from each connected device, including all record types associated with the device connection protocols.
Create an activity map
An activity map is an interactive 2D or 3D display of real-time device connections based on protocol activity between devices. Activity maps help you visualize traffic flows and kick off troubleshooting based on an interesting data point in a map.
You can create an activity map for an active single device or a device group. After generating a basic map, you can then filter devices and connections in your map.
Note: | You can create activity maps for devices in Advanced, Standard, L2 Parent Analysis, and Flow Analysis. You cannot create an activity map for devices in Discovery Mode. For more information, see Analysis priorities. |
Create a basic activity map
A basic activity map shows you a single step, or level, of device connections between origin devices and peer devices on your network.
Note: | You can create activity maps for devices in Advanced, Standard, L2 Parent Analysis, and Flow Analysis. You cannot create an activity map for devices in Discovery Mode. For more information, see Analysis priorities. |
Add connections and filter devices in your map
To better understand the path of traffic from origin devices to downstream devices,
you can add more steps to your map. You can also create filters to include or exclude
devices from the map. The following figure shows you how to add steps and create
filters.
Add another level of device connections
A step defines a level of connection between devices in a map. Devices in each step have a relationship to the devices in the previous step. These relationships are defined by their protocol activity. You can add up to 5 steps to see how traffic flows from one device to another.
Save and share an activity map
You can save an activity map and share it with others. By default, all activity maps that you create are private, which means that no ExtraHop users can view or edit your map. However, you can share your map when you save it by granting view or edit access to other ExtraHop users and groups.
Here are some important considerations about sharing activity maps:
- How a user interacts with an activity map and the information they can view in the ExtraHop system is determined by user privileges, which are assigned by the ExtraHop administrator. For more information, see the User privileges section in the ExtraHop Administrators Guide.
- When you grant a user edit access, that user can modify and share the activity map with others. However, other users cannot delete the activity map. Only the map owner can delete an activity map.
- Group information is imported into the ExtraHop system from LDAP (such as OpenLDAP or Active Directory). User information is available after an ExtraHop user logs in to their account.
- If you are deleting a user, you will have the option to transfer their activity maps to another user.
The following steps show you how to save and share an activity map:
Next steps
- If you shared your map, copy the entire map URL from your browser and then send the URL to the users with access to your map.
- Load and manage a saved activity map.
- Remove or change access to an activity map
Remove or change access to an activity map
You can remove or modify access to an activity map that you granted to users and groups. You must first create an activity map to access options to modify saved activity maps.
- Create an activity map, and then click the Open icon in the upper right corner of the page.
- Click the activity map name.
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In the Sharing section, complete one of the following steps:
- To remove access for users or groups, click the red delete x icon next to the user or group name.
- To change access for an existing user or group, click Can view or Can edit, and make a different selection.
- To add a new user or group, search for and click the user name. Click Can view or Can edit, and then click Add.
- Click Save.
Detections
The ExtraHop system applies machine learning techniques and rule-based monitoring to your wire data to identify unusual behaviors and potential risks to the security and performance of your network.
Before you begin
Users must be granted privileges to view detections.When anomalous behavior is identified, the ExtraHop system generates a detection and displays the available data and options. Controls on the Detections page help you group, filter, and sort your view of detections, so you can quickly triage issues with critical systems first.
- Collect high-quality, actionable data to find the root causes behind network issues.
- Find unknown issues with performance, security, or infrastructure.
- Identify malicious behavior that is associated with different attack categories or MITRE techniques.
- View related detections or create your own investigation to group detections and track potential attack campaigns.
- Flag suspicious IP addresses, hostnames, and URIs identified by threat intelligence.
- Highlight security hardening best practices.
Important: | Although detections can inform you about security risks and performance issues, detections do not replace decision-making or expertise about your network. Always review security and performance detections to determine the root cause of unusual behavior and when to take action. |
Navigating detections
Detection cards appear in a sortable list that can be further grouped and filtered by multiple criteria on the main Detections page. Click any detection card to navigate to the detection detail page.
Detection cards
Each detection card identifies the cause of the detection, the detection category, when the detection occurred, and the victim and offender participants. Security detections include a risk score.
- Risk score
- Measures the likelihood, complexity, and business impact of a security detection. This score provides an estimate based on factors about the frequency and availability of certain attack vectors against the necessary skill levels of a potential hacker and the consequences of a successful attack. The icon is color coded by severity as red (80-99), orange (31-79), or yellow (1-30).
- Participants
- Identifies each participant (offender and victim) involved in the detection by
hostname or IP address. Click on a participant to view basic details and access links.
Internal endpoints display a link to the Device Overview page; external endpoints
display the geolocation of the IP address and links to the ARIN Whois website and IP
address detail page. If a participant has passed through another device like a load
balancer or gateway, both the participant and the device are displayed on the
participant card, but only the origin endpoint is considered a participant.
Note: SSL/TLS decryption is required to display origin endpoints if HTTPS is enabled. Learn more about SSL/TLS decryption. When grouping the Detection page by Type, a participant summary appears under the detection type that breaks down detections by offender and victim and enables you to quickly apply participant filters.
When grouping the Detection page by Sources, internal device role icons are highlighted red if the device was an offender in a detection and teal if the device was a victim. You can click Details under the source name to view a summary of detections where that source was a participant. These device details are displayed next to the detection card on wide screens (1900 pixels or greater).
- Duration
- Identifies how long the unusual behavior was detected or displays ONGOING if the
behavior is currently occurring.
Detections that highlight security hardening best practices display two dates: the first time and the most recent time that the violation was identified.
- Metric data
- Identifies additional metric data when the unusual behavior is associated with a
specific metric or key. If metric data is unavailable for the detection, the type of
anomalous protocol activity appears.
- Detection management
- You can track or tune the detection from the Actions dropdown list, or click View Detection Details to navigate to the detection detail page.
Detection detail page
Most of the data that you need to understand and validate a detection appears on the detection detail page: tables of relevant metric data, record transactions, and links to raw packets.
The detection card information is followed by all available sections for the detection. These sections vary depending on the type of the detection.
- Track Detection
- You can track or tune the detection, or click
Add to an Investigation to include the detection in a new or
existing investigation.
If you have configured a CrowdStrike integration on your ExtraHop system, you can initiate containment of CrowdStrike devices that are participants in the detection. (Reveal(x) 360 only.)
- Decryption badge
- When the ExtraHop system identifies suspicious behavior or a potential attack in
decrypted traffic records, the detection detail page displays a decryption badge to the
right of the detection name.
Learn more about SSL/TLS decryption and decrypting traffic with a Windows domain controller.
- Detection properties
- Provides a list of properties that are relevant to the detection. For example,
detection properties can include a query, URI, or hacking tool that is central to the
detection.
- Related detections
- Provides a timeline of detections related to the current detection that can help you
identify a larger attack campaign. Related detections include the participant role,
duration, timestamp, and any role changes if the offender in one detection becomes the
victim in a different detection. Click any related detection in the timeline to view the
details page for that detection.
- Activity map
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Provides an activity map that highlights the participants involved in the detection. The activity map displays east-west traffic of the protocol associated with the detection to help you assess the scope of malicious activity. Click the victim or offender to access a drop-down menu with links to the Device Overview page and other detections where the device is a participant.
- Compare behaviors
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Provides a chart that displays the activity of the offender next to the activity of similar devices over the time period when the detection occurred. The chart appears for detections related to unconventional activity by a device, and highlights unexpected behavior by displaying it next to the behavior of devices on the network with similar properties.
- Detection data and links
- Provides all available data about the detection, such as metrics from the targeted servers and clients and their record transactions. Click the icon to view the raw
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