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• Create Date January 10, 2022
• Last Updated July 6, 2025

A Security Focused Profile (not Wireless Security) for Wireshark

This is our Network Security related Profile for Wireshark.  Keep in mind that there are many false positives when working in security - that is expected.  It takes time to weed out the bad stuff, but we find this profile to contain a ton of great filters to speed that process.

Do not consider this profile for Wireless security issues.  We have a separate profile for that.

Looking for security breaches in packet captures (pcaps) is critically important because packet captures provide the most detailed and direct view of what is happening on a network at the packet level. This makes them a powerful tool for detecting, analyzing, and responding to cyber threats.

Why It's Important:

1. Direct Evidence of Malicious Activity

Packet captures show actual traffic, not just summaries or logs.

You can observe:

• • Malware communications

  • Unauthorized data exfiltration

  • Command and control (C2) traffic

  • Exploits in action (e.g., buffer overflows, SQL injections)

2. Detecting Anomalies

Packet-level analysis helps identify:

• • Suspicious protocols or ports in use

  • Unexpected data flows between devices

  • Beaconing patterns from infected machines

  • Non-compliant devices on industrial networks (e.g., rogue Modbus master)

3. Forensic Investigation

Post-incident, pcaps help reconstruct:

• • Timeline of an attack

  • Method of entry

  • What was accessed or stolen

• Essential for attribution, legal evidence, and root cause analysis

4. Bypassing Blind Spots

Attackers may evade traditional logs or security tools (e.g., firewalls, SIEMs)

• Pcaps can capture:

  • Encrypted traffic metadata (IP headers, SNI)

  • Lateral movement attempts

  • Hidden backdoors or tunnels (e.g., DNS tunneling)

5. Verification of Alerts

• Use packet captures to confirm or refute intrusion detection system (IDS) alerts

• Avoid false positives and verify actual compromises

Packet captures are like video footage for your network. They offer unmatched visibility into real-time and historical network traffic, making them essential for detecting, analyzing, and mitigating security breaches effectively. Without them, many attacks could go unnoticed or misunderstood.

If you want to test and practice your Wireshark security skills - there is a /pcap subdirectory with pcaps you can download here: https://github.com/ITI/ICS-Security-Tools and more here: https://github.com/automayt/ICS-pcap