Captures & Analyses live network traffic in real time to detect suspicious activities using rule-based, MITRE-mapped, and machine-learning techniques.
Developed by: © 2026 Syed Shaheer Hussain
The Enterprise Network Sniffer IDS is a Python‑based enterprise‑grade network traffic monitoring and intrusion detection system. It captures live network packets, analyzes them in real time, detects suspicious or malicious behavior (such as port scanning, flooding, abnormal traffic patterns), and generates forensic‑ready PDF reports.
Caution
This project is designed for learning, research, academic (FYP), and defensive security simulation purposes.
To provide a practical, understandable, and extensible IDS solution that helps students and security enthusiasts understand how real‑world network monitoring and intrusion detection systems work.
To evolve this system into a full enterprise SOC‑ready IDS/IPS platform with dashboards, ML‑based detection, and SIEM integration.
A network is a collection of devices (computers, servers, routers, switches, IoT devices) connected together to share data and resources.
Examples:
- 🌐 Internet
- 🏢 Office LAN
- ☁️ Cloud infrastructure
Network sniffing is the process of:
- Capturing network packets
- Inspecting headers & payloads
- Analyzing traffic behavior
- Detect attacks
- Troubleshoot networks
- Monitor bandwidth
- Forensic investigation
Important
An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) monitors network traffic and:
- Detects malicious patterns
- Generates alerts
- Logs incidents
- Produces reports
- NIDS – Network‑based IDS ✅ (This project)
- HIDS – Host‑based IDS
✔️ To learn real‑world cybersecurity ✔️ To simulate enterprise IDS behavior ✔️ To understand packet‑level attacks ✔️ To build a portfolio‑grade security project ✔️ To prepare for SOC / Blue Team roles
[ Network Interface ]
↓
[ Packet Capture Engine ] (Scapy / PyShark)
↓
[ Detection Engine ]
↓
[ Event Logger ]
↓
[ GUI Dashboard ]
↓
[ PDF Report Generator ]
└── network-sniffer/
├── IDS_Report.pdf
├── main.py
├── requirements.txt
├── utils/
│ ├── logger.py
│ ├── permissions.py
│ ├── theme.py
│ └── __pycache__/
│ ├── logger.cpython-314.pyc
│ └── theme.cpython-314.pyc
├── screenshots/
│ ├── Screenshot (57).png
│ ├── Screenshot (58).png
│ └── Screenshot (59).png
├── gui/
│ ├── app.py
│ ├── charts.py
│ └── __pycache__/
│ ├── app.cpython-314.pyc
│ └── charts.cpython-314.pyc
└── core/
├── ids_engine.py
├── mitre.py
├── ml_detector.py
├── pcap_manager.py
├── pyshark_sniffer.py
├── report.py
├── scapy_sniffer.py
└── __pycache__/
├── ids_engine.cpython-314.pyc
├── mitre.cpython-314.pyc
├── ml_detector.cpython-314.pyc
├── pcap_manager.cpython-314.pyc
├── pyshark_sniffer.cpython-314.pyc
├── report.cpython-314.pyc
└── scapy_sniffer.cpython-314.pyc
- Packet sniffing
- TCP/IP analysis
- Port scan detection
- Behavioral analysis
- Log correlation
- Defensive cybersecurity
- Python 3.10+
- Scapy
- PyShark (Wireshark TShark)
- FPDF (PDF reports)
- PyQt5 / Tkinter (GUI)
- Logging module
- Windows ✅
- Linux ✅
✔️ Start / Stop Sniffing ✔️ Live event log window ✔️ IDS alerts display ✔️ Generate PDF report ✔️ Clean enterprise layout
- Real‑time packet capture
- Port scan detection (T1046)
- Event logging
- GUI‑based control
- Auto PDF reporting
- Old reports preserved
- Unicode‑safe PDF generation
start_sniffing()– Begin packet capturestop_sniffing()– Stop captureanalyze_packet()– Detect suspicious behaviorlog_event()– Save IDS alertsgenerate_pdf()– Create forensic report
✔️ Each report saved with timestamp ✔️ No old report replaced ✔️ Long lines auto wrapped ✔️ Hex & raw data safe
Example Output:
IDS_Report_20260202_154001.pdf
Download from: 👉 https://www.python.org
✔️ Tick Add Python to PATH
Download: 👉 https://www.wireshark.org
✔️ Ensure TShark is installed ✔️ Default path:
C:\Program Files\Wireshark\tshark.exe
Or Open Command Prompt
where tshark
- This cmd tells you the location/path of tshark
- Make sure the wireshark folder assigned in Envoirnment Variable Path
Open CMD in project folder:
pip install -r requirements.txt
cd network-sniffer
python main.py
1️⃣ Click Start Sniffing
2️⃣ Generate traffic (browser, ping, scan)
3️⃣ Watch alerts in GUI
4️⃣ Click Generate Report
5️⃣ PDF saved in IDS_Reports/
✔️ Open Chrome ✔️ Browse any website ✔️ IDS captures packets automatically
❌ No username/password required ❌ Runs locally on your machine
Start
↓
Select Interface
↓
Capture Packets
↓
Analyze Traffic
↓
Threat Detected?
↓ ↓
Yes No
↓ ↓
Log Event
↓
Generate Report
↓
End
Caution
- ❌ Do NOT use on public networks
- ❌ Do NOT sniff without permission
- ❌ Educational use only
Important
- Requires admin privileges
- Antivirus may flag sniffing
- Heavy traffic may slow system
✔️ Network protocols ✔️ IDS working ✔️ Packet analysis ✔️ Cyber defense mindset ✔️ Python system design
This project is valuable for:
- SOC Analyst roles
- Blue Team jobs
- Cybersecurity portfolios
- FYP / Thesis
- ML‑based anomaly detection
- Web dashboard
- SIEM integration
- Email alerts
- Cloud monitoring
- IPS (auto blocking)
Important
This software is provided for educational and research purposes only. The developer is not responsible for misuse.
© 2026 Syed Shaheer Hussain All rights reserved.
Note
This project demonstrates real enterprise cybersecurity concepts in a simple, understandable, and extensible way. It is ideal for students, researchers, and security enthusiasts.
🛡️ Learn. Detect. Defend.
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