How do I monitor my network for anything out of the norm to easily identify new or unexpected trends/issues? can you please give me some preventive measures to keep my data safe?
Unless you are a major corporation, there is no real need to "monitor the network". It's not like we really have the time to monitor the millions of network events that occur every day. I used to use Little Snitch but it got really irritating real fast with the non-stop notifications. The best solution for most people is to enable a firewall and only open specific ports for specific applications that require it. And of course, have an antivirus software running in the background.