Archive

Archive for June, 2009

Capsa 6.9 R2 is Coming Very Soon

June 30th, 2009 Colasoft No comments

We are going to release Capsa 6.9 R2 very soon, stay close :)

Categories: News & Events Tags:

Colasoft Capsa vs Wireshark, a Voice from Geminisecurity.com

June 29th, 2009 Willis Huang 2 comments

eminisecurity.com, which is major in security solutions, has recently released a review about Capsa, compared with Wireshark. Capsa is well considered with the company, and they have made a excellent review in Capsa’s features:

Geminisecurity.com
You’ve already been introduced to Wireshark and learned how to use it. We now consider another tool, Colasoft Capsa Enterprise Edition, which can be used for network sniffing as well. Colasoft Capsa offers many of the same features as Wireshark and introduces new features in analysis. Similar to Wireshark, Colasoft Capsa captures and decodes packets, and supplies a hex view of each packet.

Click here to read the full story about Colasoft Capsa VS Wireshark, and this “Using Colasoft Capsa” is a perfect brief introduction to help you learn more about Capsa.

Categories: News & Events Tags: ,

How to Detect Email Worm with Colasoft Packet Sniffer

June 24th, 2009 Colasoft 7 comments

What Is an Email Worm
In networking, an email worm is a computer worm which can copy itself to the shared folder in system. And it will keep sending infected emails to stochastic email addresses. In this way, it spreads fast via SMTP mail servers.

What Is the Harm of Email Worm
An email worm can send lots of infected emails in a very short time and it will never stop unless it’s removed. It will cause a large traffic and make the system go slowly. Sometimes it even makes the mail server crash.

How to Detect Email Worm
If you are suspicious some host in your network is infected with an email worm, here is a process how we can detect email worm in network with Colasoft Packet Sniffer, step by step.

>Step1. Download a free trial and deploy it properly.

>Step2. Launch a Project and Start Capturing Some Traffic.

>Step3. Switch to “Diagnosis” Tab
Diagnosis tab is a view we can see all the network issues automatically detected by Colasoft Packet Sniffer, also some causes and solutions are suggested.

Diagnosis Tab Screenshot

Diagnosis Tab Screenshot

If there is a host infected with an email worm, we should be able to see SMTP events in the application layer like this:

SMTP Events in Application Layer

SMTP Events in Application Layer

>Step4. Locate the Source IP
Possibly the source IP is the host infected with an email worm as it is sending too many emails in a short period of time with SMTP. So let’s locate the source IP in the “Explorer” with the “Locate” shortcut in the right-click menu.

Locate Source IP

Locate Source IP

>Step5. Switch to “Logs” Tab
Check if the host is sending emails to a large number of recipients in a very short period of time. If so, we can determine the host is infected with an email worm and should be handled immediately. We should be able to see logs in the Tab like this:

View Email Logs in "Logs" Tab

View Email Logs in "Logs" Tab

No doubt the final step is to isolate the host and kill the email worm with some AV software

Also there will be some other process to detect email worm with Colasoft Packet Sniffer, this is the shortest one.

Categories: Tips & How-tos Tags: , ,

Capsa Enterprise Edition Recently Reviewd by Keylogger.org

June 21st, 2009 Colasoft 4 comments

We are happy to see that keyloggers.org, which has a special appetite in reviewing and testing monitoring software, recently tested and reviewed Capsa Enterprise Edition, also gave it a very favorable comment.

Keylogger.org Logo

Keylogger.org Logo


Colasoft Capsa also has a lot of other advantages, but we think you already understood the two generic ones – first, the information analyzed by Colasoft Capsa is easy to access and view and, second, the program itself is very user-friendly and easy to understand. These qualities make Colasoft Capsa a perfect choice both for experts and novices in network administration.

To view to full review, you can click here.

Categories: News & Events Tags: ,

Get Colasoft MAC Scanner Pro Edition For Free, Act Now!

June 18th, 2009 Colasoft 2 comments

Are you ready for this? We are. Say goodbye to the Free edition and get your license key for the Pro edition immediately!

How to Get It?

What’s the difference anyway?
With MAC Scanner Pro Edition, you can:

  • Save Scan Results into database for future reference
  • Add attributes (such as users name and physical location of the host) to scan results and save in database
  • Automatically compares new MAC scan results with database records and notifies difference and new records (illegal access)
  • Export Scan Results
  • More…

Find the difference yourself as you can get it for free!

Cheers,
Colasoft Team

Upcoming: Get MAC Scanner Pro Edition For Free!

June 15th, 2009 Colasoft 2 comments

Good news for the users who need advanced features in MAC Scanner Pro:

Later this month we’ll announce an event which users can get MAC Scanner Pro (market price $99) completely Free.

So please keep up with our blog and be the lucky ones, subscribe our rss with the tool on the right top corner.

Good Luck! :)

How to detect the network malfunction via the end-point view with Colasoft Capsa

June 11th, 2009 Willis Huang 7 comments

Brief introduction about the Endpoint view in Colasoft Capsa
It is divided into Mac endpoint and IP endpoint in Colasoft 6.9. Users can detect the IP/Mac endpoint in the largest traffic in a short time by the endpoint analytics. And also, The system supply clear statistics of traffic ranking(Top 5 IP endpoint under HTTP protocol).

In the Endpoint view, we can see the specific traffic situation clearly of all the hosts(Including a network segment, a Mac address, and a IP address) in the currently network. Like the hosts with the largest total traffic, hosts that send/receive the largest traffic, hosts that send/receive the most packets, etc.

According to this information, we can confirm that if there are Broadcast / multicast storm, and help users detecting the network malfunctions about network slow, network disconnect, worm attack, DOS attack, and all the malfunctions besides.

Application case study
Once we meet the network malfunction or attack, what the most important thing we should pay attention to, is the currently total network traffic, sent/received traffic, network connection etc, to get a clear direction to find the problem. And, all of this information are included in the endpoint view in Colasoft Capsa 6.9(figure 1):

endpoint_view_1

In figure 1 we can make a compositor on the total traffic, network connection and other related information, to find and locate the host with largest traffic or most connections in the network. For example, at present, the host with the largest network connection is , we can locate the host, then check the related connection information(figure 2):

The connection information shown as the figure 2, we can know that has set up a large amount of TCP connection with other hosts, and the destination address and destination endpoint are indefinite, and Many of the state is to connect client requests synchronization.

endpoint_view_2

Next, check the TCP packets, we can check them out in Summary and Graphic as follows:

endpoint_view_31

endpoint_view_4

In the TCP packets information, we found has sent TCP synchronization packet, and the TCP FIN packets and TCP Reset packets are, this is deviant in the network.

Please go to the Colasoft Official FAQ page for more “How-tos”

How to Track BitTorrent User in Network with Colasoft Packet Sniffer

June 10th, 2009 Colasoft 6 comments

BitTorrent Consumes Big Bandwidth
Based on the working principle of BitTorrent protocol, if somebody is downloading big files with BitTorrent software, it will be a disaster for other users who need bandwidth for business operations as the user will consume large amount of bandwidth, thus causing long time network slowness, intermittence, even disconnections; because meantime the user downloading files from others, others are downloading files from him.

So it is necessary for IT administrators to track BitTorrent user at first place to regain network bandwidth for business operations. Blocking BitTorrent protocol can be one way; this article is to discuss how to track BitTorrent users with Colasoft Packet Sniffer.

How to Track BitTorrent User?

>Step1. Download a free trial and implement it correctly

>Step2. Launch a project and start capturing data

>Step3. Find BitTorrent Protocol in the “Protocols” Tab

Track BitTorrent User Screenshot 1

Track BitTorrent User Screenshot 1

>Setp4. Locate BitTorrent Protocol in the “Explorer”
Use the “Locate” function to locate BitTorrent protocol in the “Explorer” to analyze dedicated data.

Track BitTorrent User Screenshot 2

Track BitTorrent User Screenshot 2

>Step5. Track BitTorrent User in LAN in the “Endpoint” Tab
This is the way how to track the BitTorrent user in our network and who are connected with him. There is a lot more we can see from this tab, such as how much data has been downloaded and uploaded via BitTorrent protocol.

Track BitTorrent User Screenshot 3

Track BitTorrent User Screenshot 3

View how many connections have been built in “Matrix”
You’ll be shocked to see how many connections have been built in the “Matrix” Tab. In this case, we can see this user has built more than 1000 connections with other hosts.

Track BitTorrent User Screenshot 4

Track BitTorrent User Screenshot 4

About BitTorrent
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files.

The protocol works when a file provider initially makes his/her file (or group of files) available to the network. This is called a seed and allows others, named peers, to connect and download the file. Each peer that downloads a part of the data makes it available to other peers to download. After the file is successfully downloaded by a peer, many continue to make the data available, becoming additional seeds. This distributed nature of BitTorrent leads to a viral spreading of a file throughout peers. As more peers join the swarm, the likelihood of a successful download increases. Relative to standard Internet hosting, this provides a significant reduction in the original distributor’s hardware and bandwidth resource costs. It also provides redundancy against system problems and reduces dependence on the original distributor.

Next Step
>>Download a Free Trial

How to Monitor MSN Chat with Free Unipeek MSN Monitor

June 5th, 2009 Colasoft 7 comments

For some purposes we want to monitor MSN chat around the network, for example, parents want to monitor MSN chat of their kids to ensure their safety; bosses want to monitor MSN chat of employees for company assets security and to improve work efficiency by minimizing none-business chat during working hours. You may still remember Colasoft MSN Monitor, now it is called Unipeek MSN Monitor and it is distributed completely Free for none commercial users.

Now let’s see how we can monitor MSN chat with Unipeek MSN Monitor, the free tool.

Step1. Download Unipeek MSN Monitor

Download Unipeek MSN Monitor, the free edition; from the website. As a matter of fact there is no function difference between Unipeek MSN Monitor the free edition and the commercial edition. The only difference is Unipeek MSN Monitor Free Edition only supports 10 MSN accounts maximum, but quite enough for family users.

Step2. Install and Deploy Unipeek MSN Monitor

The installation is quick and simple, just click “next” all the way to complete the installation. But the deployment is somewhat different. As Unipeek MSN Monitor is designed based on Colasoft’s packet capturing technology, so it has to be deployed properly like a packet sniffer if you want to monitor all MSN chat around the network. Of course, you don’t have to do it if you only want to monitor MSN chat of a single computer. To monitor multiple computers, you can install multiple copies.

How to Monitor MSN Chat Screenshot 1

How to Monitor MSN Chat Screenshot 1

Setp3. Run it and Start Monitor MSN Chat

After proper installation and deployment, we can start monitoring MSN chat right away.

How to Monitor MSN Chat Screenshot 2

How to Monitor MSN Chat Screenshot 2

About Unipeek MSN Monitor
Unipeek MSN Monitor (MSN sniffer) is Free MSN monitoring software for MSN chat monitoring and MSN message archiving. Based on Colasoft’s packet analysis technology, Unipeek MSN Monitor is able to deliver the most accurate MSN monitoring statistics, and automatically record data for future reference. You need only install Unipeek MSN Monitor once to monitor all MSN chats over the local network.

Key Features include:
•    Real-time and 24/7 MSN chat monitoring
•    Automatically archive MSN messages for future reference
•    Export messages of a custom time range
•    Customize MSN account list to be monitored
•    Unique Conversation Matrix showing account relations
•    Support emotion icons, message font size and color.

Download Now
Download Unipeek MSN Monitor

Categories: Tips & How-tos Tags: , , , ,