From Bits to Insights: Exploring Network Traffic, Traffic Matrices, and Heavy-Tailed Data

With the Internet a central component of modern society, entire industries and fields have developed both in support and against cybersecurity. For cyber operators to best understand their networks, they must conduct detailed traffic analyses. A growing recognition is the ubiquity of heavy-tailed characteristics in network traffic. However, a thorough analysis of cybersecurity programs suggests little statistics educational background, worsened by the observation that college-level statistics courses largely lack heavy-tailed content, meaning cyber operators are both ill-equipped to appropriately analyze their network traffic and unable to easily access resources that could help. In response, we developed an accessible Jupyter Notebook module that guides individuals--regardless of statistical background--through traffic matrix creation, heavy-tailed data identification, data visualization, and distribution fitting. Such content empowers cyber operators, improving analyses and design.