Active Vs Passive Monitoring: Which is Best for Your Network?

The best way to protect yourself from cyberattacks is by having a strong firewall and antivirus program installed on all devices connected to your home network. If someone manages to break through your defenses, it’s important to know what happened so you can take action to prevent future attacks. Monitoring your network is vital because it helps you identify potential issues before they occur.

Monitoring your network is crucial to ensure that it remains secure and stable. There are two main types of monitoring: Active and Passive Monitoring. Which one should you choose?

What is Network Monitoring?

Network monitoring is a process where network administrators monitor the performance of their networks. The goal of network monitoring is to detect any issues during regular operation. Network monitoring tools help IT professionals troubleshoot potential network issues and provide information about how well the network performs.

Types of Network Monitoring?

There are three types of network monitoring: Passive Network Monitoring, Active Network Monitoring, and Hybrid Network Monitoring.

• Passive network monitoring is when you monitor traffic passively, which means you don’t actively interact with the traffic.
• Active monitoring is when you actively interact with the traffic, such as changing DNS records, adding IP addresses, or modifying firewall rules.
• Hybrid monitoring is a combination of both passive and active monitoring.

What is Active Monitoring?

Active network monitoring(also known as synthetic monitoring) is a method of security where a system actively monitors for suspicious activity.

This method helps identify and monitor real-time data performance issues such as packet loss, jitter, HTTP response time, etc. This includes looking at network traffic, logs, and other data sources to identify malicious behavior. The goal is to detect attacks before they happen.

Active testing also helps determine the performance of new hardware. Most active monitors allow you to configure them so they focus on specific parts of the network. You can use tools to monitor network traffic and identify potential issues bottlenecks before they reach the end user.

An active performance monitor end-to-end simulates how actual users might act on a network rather than taking into account real users and data in quality of service(Qos).

The main advantage of active network monitoring is that it can help identify potential security threats and ability to maintain complete visibility into your network and the ability to immediately identify blind spots. However, the downside is that it requires more time and effort. This means that you have to be vigilant about keeping an eye out. This can be more convenient because the problem won’t worsen while you’re not looking at it.

However, passive monitoring doesn’t always catch everything going on in your network.

Pros and Cons of Active Monitoring

Pros

• Provides 24/7 protection
• It can help you identify potential security risks before a breach occurs.
• You’ll receive alerts whenever there’s something wrong with your network.

Cons

• It requires more time and effort.
• Requires constant maintenance
• It takes longer than passive monitoring.
• More expensive than passive monitoring

What is Passive Monitoring?

Passive monitoring is a method of monitoring your network usage trends where you do not actively interact with the depth traffic and analyse historical traffic passing through your network. Passive monitors is usually done using packet sniffers. Packet sniffers record packets that pass through your network, and they send these packets back to a central location where they can be analyzed.

The main benefit of passive network monitoring is that it doesn’t require much time or effort. You simply need to install software on your computer, connect it to your network, and then wait for the packets to arrive. Passive monitoring is ideal for smaller businesses or home users who want to keep track of what’s happening on their network without spending too much time doing so.

Pros and Cons of Passive Monitoring

Pros

• Easy to set up
• Less expensive than active monitoring
• Allows you to keep an eye on things without being seen

Cons

• May miss some potential threats
• Doesn’t give you complete control over your network
• Doesn’t work all the time

Difference between Active and Passive Monitoring?

As mentioned earlier, passive analysis is checking whether or not your website has been hacked. This can be done by looking at the visitor’s IP address, but this method isn’t 100% accurate. For example, if someone uses a VPN service, they could have their IP address changed, appearing like another person. If you’re worried about being hacked, then active monitoring is the way to go. It involves sending out emails to your customers, asking them to confirm their email addresses and passwords. This helps you keep track of any changes made to your database.

Active analysis is more effective than passive monitoring because it is proactive and allows you to identify problems before they occur. Passive monitoring is reactive and requires time to detect issues.

Active monitoring take a proactive approach to network troubleshooting is done by sending data requests and potential problems to the monitored system. These requests are sent as packets and are processed by the target system. This method allows you to view information such as IP addresses, MAC addresses, and file transfers.

Passive monitoring is performed by observing real traffic on the network. This method is similar to snooping, except no data requests are made. It is typically used to detect intruders.

How Do I Choose between Active vs Passive Monitoring?

You need to decide between active and passive monitoring based on your needs. Active monitoring will be better if you want to know exactly what people are doing on your network. On the other hand, passive monitoring is probably a better choice if you just want to keep an eye on things. You also need to consider your budget, and passive monitoring is usually less expensive than active monitoring.

We would recommend using passive monitoring unless there is a specific reason to use active monitoring.

Because active monitoring requires you to maintain the software and hardware used to perform the monitoring, this could mean spending money on new equipment. Some routers need physical access to the device, so you’d have to go to the device’s location to make changes.

Passive monitoring is ideal to gain a detailed understanding of user behavior and application performance. Carriers can then use this knowledge to improve their service offerings and Quality of experience(QoE).

In addition, active monitoring is generally more expensive than passive monitoring.

Which One is Better?

Both methods have their pros and cons. Active monitoring gives you detailed information regarding the activities occurring on the monitored system. However, it requires constant maintenance, and passive monitoring provides limited information.

When Should I Use One Method Over Another?

The answer to this question depends on what you are looking for. If you are concerned with detecting intrusions, then passive monitoring is the way to go. However, if you want to monitor users’ activity, then active monitoring is best.

Active vs Passive Monitoring: Which is Better for You?

I would say that there is no single answer to this question. Each situation is unique, and you need to decide what works best for you. There are several factors to consider, such as budget, available resources (time, money), etc.

The most crucial factor is the level of risk that you are willing to accept. If you have a low-risk tolerance, passive monitoring may be acceptable. On the other hand, if you are very concerned about security, you should look at active monitoring.

To summarize, here are our recommendations based on the points mentioned above:

1. If you are looking for a cost-effective solution, passive monitoring may work well for you.
2. If you are looking at a high-risk environment, active monitoring is probably the right solution.
3. If you don’t mind spending extra money but still want to ensure maximum protection, you can use both passive and active monitoring.
4. If you want to save money while ensuring maximum security, you should use passive monitoring.

It really comes down to how much effort you want to put into maintaining your monitoring systems. If you don’t want to spend much time or money on keeping them, passive monitoring is ideal. Otherwise, active monitoring is the way to do it. It all comes down to how much risk you can tolerate and what type of monitoring you want.