PRACTICAL NETWORK SECURITY MONITORING is intended to guide beginner through intermediate users how to use free software to collect, monitor, and analyze network traffic to detect and identify potential threats. Network Security Monitoring is complex but with a few tools and basic knowledge of your network, you can detect, identify, and defend against cyber threats to your network. This book provides practical exercises to learn how to use free software to identify threats to your network. The practical exercises provide step-by-step instructions allowing you to install, configure, and use the free tools. This book is not intended to be an all-inclusive guide to defending your network and assets, but is intended to provide you with the hands-on experience to analyze your network traffic and determine if traffic is malicious.