As Africa undergoes rapid digital transformation, the increasing attack surface for cyber threats highlights the critical role of retrospective analysis in cybersecurity. This method allows security teams to investigate past network data to uncover hidden threats and confirm incident scopes, proving vital for industries across the continent.

• A NETSCOUT survey revealed that 84 percent of cybersecurity professionals consider retrospective analysis critical for uncovering and mitigating advanced persistent threats.
• The process involves going back through stored network traffic data, at the packet level, to validate alerts, prove firewall effectiveness, enrich SIEM and EDR investigations, and enable proactive threat hunting.
• Without retrospective analysis, investigations become speculative, leading to missed attack activity, delayed or misguided incident response decisions, and a breakdown of audit trails, impacting compliance and trust in security posture.