The NETSCOUT® packet deduplication capability removes packet duplicates and provides a substantial reduction in the volume of traffic to the tools. This provides an increase in tool efficiency, a reduction in errors on the monitoring tool, and a closure of security holes that exist in other implementations. The deduplication capability includes selective packet deduplication, keyed secure hash for identifying duplicates, configurable duplicate packet tracking time window, discard of all subsequent duplicates of any packet within the specified time window, and the generation of duplicated traffic statistics.