IBM QRadar has achieved a major milestone in network traffic analysis by expanding its MAC address parsing capabilities beyond traditional, template-based flow sources. Previously, QRadar supported MAC address extraction from NetFlow and IPFIX, where MAC address data is provided through standard templates and parsed accordingly. This established QRadar as a leader in flow-level visibility.
With its latest enhancement, QRadar now supports MAC address parsing for additional flow types—including sFlow, QFlow (which operate by collecting raw packets of data from the network) and Packeteer. This advancement enables direct interpretation of traffic from ethernet frames, marking a significant evolution in QRadar’s traffic inspection capabilities.
This level of visibility is unique in the SIEM space, giving security teams access to MAC level detail across a diverse set of flow types. With this enhancement, QRadar can now support precise device attribution, advanced traffic analysis, and insider threat detection.
Why Parsing MAC Addresses Matters?
MAC addresses are unique hardware identifiers for network interfaces and are foundational for understanding traffic behaviour at the device level.
Accurately ties network activity to specific devices, simplifying monitoring and asset tracking.
2. Traffic Analysis & Optimization
Enables visibility into communication patterns, helping identify congestion, inefficiencies, and usage trends.
Helps detect unauthorized or suspicious devices and supports rapid response to anomalies.
Facilitates faster problem resolution by identifying the exact devices involved in an incident.
5. Network Segmentation & Access Control
Supports policies based on device roles or types and allows MAC-based filtering to restrict access.
6. Routing & Forwarding (e.g., in SDN)
In advanced network architectures, MAC addresses aid in optimizing packet delivery and routing logic.
Provides forensic evidence to investigate breaches and trace data exfiltration paths.
8. VLAN & Multicast Visibility
Enhances understanding of traffic distribution and device participation in segmented or multicast networks.
Incorporating MAC address parsing into flow analysis provides a comprehensive view of network activity. From enhancing security to optimizing performance, it is an essential capability for modern network operations and management.
Sample Use Case: Insider Threat Detection in a Banking Environment
An unhappy employee at a major financial institution attempts to get sensitive data after hours. To avoid detection by traditional endpoint monitoring, the employee brings a personal laptop and connects it to the corporate network using a USB-to-Ethernet dongle—a method that bypasses standard device controls and uses a dynamically assigned IP address, making identification more difficult.
Detection with QRadar’s Enhanced Visibility:
Thanks to MAC address parsing from flow records (including NetFlow, sFlow, QFlow, and Packeteer), QRadar can:
You can track the asset with MAC in flow records which is represented as below:
This use case demonstrates how MAC address visibility from ethernet frames enables QRadar to detect insider threats that would otherwise bypass traditional controls, especially in high-security environments like banking. It provides a critical audit trail, enhances zero-trust enforcement, and ensures regulatory compliance by proactively preventing data leakage. This is a sample use case, and more use cases can be built around this. IBM QRadar has may out of the box rules which look for MAC address parsing from different Flow records. Those can also be utilized here as well.
Through this blog we shown you how IBM QRadar SIEM’s additional MAC address parsing capabilities help to protect business environments against different types of Threats. More such use cases can be created based on the requirement.
If you have any questions regarding any of the points mentioned above or want to discuss this further, feel free to get in touch with us: