NIST 800-53 REV 5 • SYSTEM AND INFORMATION INTEGRITY
SI-4(25) — Optimize Network Traffic Analysis
Provide visibility into network traffic at external and key internal system interfaces to optimize the effectiveness of monitoring devices.
CMMC Practice Mapping
No direct CMMC mapping
NIST 800-171 Mapping
No direct NIST 800-171 mapping
Related Controls
No related controls listed
Supplemental Guidance
Encrypted traffic, asymmetric routing architectures, capacity and latency limitations, and transitioning from older to newer technologies (e.g., IPv4 to IPv6 network protocol transition) may result in blind spots for organizations when analyzing network traffic. Collecting, decrypting, pre-processing, and distributing only relevant traffic to monitoring devices can streamline the efficiency and use of devices and optimize traffic analysis.
Practitioner Notes
Optimize your network traffic analysis to focus monitoring resources on the most important traffic and reduce alert fatigue from false positives.
Example 1: Tune your IDS rules to your specific environment. Disable rules that do not apply (like Linux-specific rules on a Windows-only network) and adjust thresholds on remaining rules to reduce false positives while maintaining detection of real threats.
Example 2: Use machine learning-based network detection (like Darktrace or Vectra) that builds a model of your normal traffic patterns and alerts on true deviations rather than matching static signatures. This reduces alert fatigue while improving detection of novel threats.