performing-network-packet-capture-analysis

Use tshark with display filters to extract specific fields, for example tshark -r capture.pcap -Y "http.request" -T fields -e http.host. You can also export transferred files with --export-objects and generate protocol or conversation statistics with -z io,phs and -z conv,tcp.

Detect beaconing by computing inter-arrival time mean and variance per destination IP and port across the whole capture. Connections with low timing variance and regular intervals indicate potential beaconing, though jittered C2 requires statistical analysis rather than fixed time-delta filters.

Wireshark is the interactive GUI tool for deep protocol dissection and visual filtering, while tshark is its command-line counterpart suited for scripting, automation, and batch extraction of fields and objects from captures.

No, TLS 1.3, QUIC, and DoH/DoT payloads are opaque without session keys. You can still pivot to metadata such as SNI, JA3/JA3S fingerprints, certificate details, flow sizes, and timing patterns to identify suspicious activity.

Empty exports usually result from truncated captures with small snaplen values that strip payloads, or from one-sided captures that prevent TCP reassembly. Verify capture integrity with capinfos to check snaplen, drop counts, and duration before analysis.