Network General Corporation (now known as Network Associates Inc.) introduced the Sniffer Network Analyzer in 1988. Since then, the Sniffer has passed through several hands, including McAfee. In 2007, NETSCOUT acquired Network General, along with Sniffer. The first generation of Sniffer read the message headers of data packets on the network. This monitoring tool provided administrators with a centralized global view of all network activity, offering details such as the addresses of senders and receivers, file sizes and other packet-related information.