Incident Response

Other Essential Network-Based Tools

As we’ve said repeatedly, maximum flexibility is one of the keys to success for an IRT. Unless your team supports a relatively small or very well-defined environment in which you explicitly know every type of network medium that you’re likely to encounter (and we’ve seen very few folks that do), chances are you’re going to need a few extra tools for those situations when you’re hit with the unexpected.

MicroRACK

The MicroRACK from Blackbox Network Services is primarily used in incident response situations for network media conversion. However, don’t mistake it for a simple in/out network media converter; those are readily available from any number of network supply vendors (and should also be considered for a comprehensive IRT tool kit). The MicroRACK is an industrial-strength media converter box, available in 2-, 4-, 8-, and 16-port backplane configurations. Each of the port slots in the chassis can accept one of the numerous interface modules available from Blackbox. We won’t bother to list all of the available interfaces here, but the network medium that you’re looking for is almost certainly available from them.

No comprehensive IRT tool kit is complete without a MicroRACK and an assortment of interface cards spanning a wide range of network media. For more information, see the vendor’s web site at http://www.blackbox.com.

Century Network Tap

Shomiti makes the Century Network Tap family of tools. They are used, as the name implies, to tap into ...