Ixia announced the integration of its Application and Threat Intelligence (ATI) Processor with the Plixer International Scrutinizer cyber threat incident response solution. The joint solution improves forensic incident response and application optimization capabilities that help IT professionals prepare for the next cyber attack or application performance issue.

Scrutinizer provides a behavior analysis system for cyber threat detection and forensic analysis that uncovers unwanted communication by leveraging flow data. The Ixia ATI Processor complements the Plixer Scrutinizer by generating an expanded NetFlow data feed called IxFlow from all points in the data center and then sends it to Scrutinizer for analysis. The combined solution gives administrators the ability to identify users, device types, operating systems and applications that generate excessive traffic or security threats, which then enables them to isolate malware and remove unwanted behaviors.

The Ixia ATI Processor performs the raw packet processing and deep packet inspection providing full layer 2 – 7 insight including application classification, application behavior, geo-location, user device details and other flow data to Plixer for analysis. The ATI Processor is a key component of the Intelligence layer of Ixia’s Visibility Architecture and provides rich contextual metadata to security and performance analysis tools, to make existing tools even more effective and scalable.

The joint solution provides:

- High-speed deep packet inspection for rich application identification (e.g. Facebook, Google and Amazon) with additional detail provided on geo-location and device OS.

- Insight into the network where existing routers and switches cannot provide sufficient communication context and details.

- Isolation and removal of unwanted network behaviors and security breaches.

- Compliance reporting that includes a complete audit trail of all communications.

Additionally, Ixia offers several components that can be combined with Plixer's Scrutinizer - Incident Response System to help ensure that customers can obtain an always-on low latency user experience. From physical and virtual network taps that enable customized feeds of monitoring data to analysis tools to the network packet broker that aggregates and filters monitoring tool data, Ixia’s Visibility Architecture delivers the comprehensive monitoring solution enterprises and service providers need to maintain network quality.

“Today’s reality is that IT environments are under constant threat of malicious attacks, and organizations must be prepared to combat these threats with advanced and fool-proof solutions to protect intellectual property,” said Mike Patterson, Founder & Product Manager at Plixer. “With the combination of Ixia’s ATI Processor’s application intelligence and Plixer’s Scrutinizer solution with integrated behavior analysis, enterprises are able to detect issues in real-time and prevent sophisticated attacks from stealing sensitive data.”