The cloud era has fundamentally changed how enterprise networks are built and operated. Organizations now rely on a mix of on-premises infrastructure, private clouds, multiple public cloud platforms, SaaS applications, and remote users. While this hybrid and multi-cloud model delivers agility and scalability, it also introduces significant security challenges—particularly around visibility and threat detection.

Traditional network security approaches were designed for static environments with clear perimeters. In today’s cloud-driven architectures, those perimeters no longer exist. Traffic is dynamic, highly distributed, and often encrypted by default. To secure these modern environments, organizations must rethink their approach to network security. Network Detection and Response (NDR) has emerged as a critical capability for protecting hybrid and multi-cloud networks.

Why Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Networks Are Harder to Secure

Hybrid and multi-cloud environments dramatically expand the attack surface. Workloads spin up and down automatically, applications communicate across cloud accounts and regions, and east-west traffic frequently bypasses traditional security controls.

At the same time, attackers have evolved. Rather than relying on noisy malware, modern adversaries use stolen credentials, legitimate administrative tools, and trusted cloud services to blend into normal activity. Once inside a cloud environment, they can move laterally at machine speed—often without triggering traditional alerts.

Logs and endpoint tools alone are not enough to detect this behavior. What security teams need is continuous, independent visibility into how systems communicate across the network, regardless of where those systems are located.

The Role of NDR in the Cloud Era

Network Detection and Response addresses this challenge by analyzing network traffic to detect suspicious and malicious behavior in real time. Instead of focusing solely on known indicators of compromise, NDR identifies abnormal communication patterns, unexpected data transfers, and deviations from normal behavior.

In hybrid and multi-cloud environments, NDR tools provides a consistent layer of detection across on-premises networks, cloud workloads, and virtual networks. This allows security teams to identify threats that may bypass endpoint agents or generate minimal log evidence.

As cloud adoption accelerates, NDR is becoming a foundational security capability rather than an optional enhancement.

NetWitness-Driven NDR for Modern Networks

NetWitness delivers NDR capabilities designed specifically for complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Its approach transforms raw network traffic into actionable intelligence by extracting rich metadata and applying advanced behavioral analytics.

NetWitness enables visibility into both north-south and east-west traffic across on-premises infrastructure and cloud platforms. This comprehensive coverage allows security teams to see how users, applications, and workloads interact—making it easier to identify suspicious behavior that would otherwise remain hidden.

What makes NetWitness particularly effective in the cloud era is its OT security to correlate network intelligence with logs, endpoint telemetry, and threat intelligence. This correlation provides context that is essential for understanding modern attacks, which rarely unfold within a single control plane.

Detecting Cloud-Specific Threats

Cloud and hybrid environments introduce attack techniques that traditional tools struggle to detect. These include:

• Credential abuse and unauthorized access
• Lateral movement between cloud workloads
• Encrypted command-and-control communications
• Abuse of cloud APIs and service accounts
• Data exfiltration using trusted cloud services

NetWitness NDR detects these threats by establishing behavioral baselines and identifying deviations that indicate malicious intent. This behavior-based approach is especially effective in cloud environments, where attackers often rely on legitimate functionality to avoid detection.

By focusing on how systems communicate rather than what tools are used, NetWitness helps organizations identify threats earlier in the attack lifecycle.

Accelerating Detection and Response

In cloud environments, speed is critical. Workloads are dynamic, and attackers can move quickly across environments. Delayed detection often leads to broader impact and higher remediation costs.

NetWitness NDR solutions enhances response by delivering high-fidelity alerts enriched with network context and correlated evidence. Security analysts can quickly determine what happened, how far an attacker moved, and which assets are affected—without manually piecing together data from multiple tools.

This streamlined approach reduces mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR), enabling faster containment and minimizing business disruption.

Securing the Future of Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Networks

Hybrid and multi-cloud architectures are here to stay. As organizations continue to modernize, security strategies must evolve alongside them. Relying solely on perimeter defenses, logs, or endpoints leaves critical blind spots that attackers are eager to exploit.

Network Detection and Response is no longer optional in the cloud era—it is essential. By restoring deep network visibility and correlating it with other security telemetry, NetWitness NDR enables organizations to secure hybrid and multi-cloud networks with confidence.

In an environment where attackers hide in legitimate traffic, seeing the network clearly is the key to staying ahead.