RE: Recent Gartner IDS/IPS report

From: Carey, Steve T GARRISON (steven-carey_at_us.army.mil)
Date: 06/18/03

  • Next message: Mayank-Bhatnagar: "RE: IDS and NMS"
    To: Stephen Samuel <samuel@bcgreen.com>, Gary Golomb <gee_two@yahoo.com>
    Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 15:24:48 -0500
    
    

    My 2 cents......until technology catches up (which I doubt it will be by 2005,
    despite what Gartner states) there is no single solution for IDS or IPS (or a
    firewall). We use a suite of tools that includes both and a firewall. In our
    environment we have been very successful in spotting new and old exploits, true,
    learning to identify an attack was costly (at first) but in the long run, well
    worth the expense (which includes periodic classes to maintain and learn new
    techniques). But consider the cost if we had not identified a compromised
    system and it continued to stay compromised because the firewall or an IPS did
    not identify it (real world example, had a compromise that made it through a
    firewall and IP tables).

    This whole argument (that Gartner started with an incomplete and not real world
    report) is like saying that human guards will be replaced by camera's, because
    it is cheaper to run a camera. Course someone has to look at the output from a
    camera, but who's counting. Camera's are good and guards are good, but together
    they make for tighter security.

    Point being...everyone knows how to have good physical security, because they
    can see it, however, when it comes to electronic security, because it can not be
    seen, it is harder to justify, harder to implement, etc., etc..

    Steven T. Carey
    LCIRT-R Team Leader
    Comm (256) 876-5811
    Cell (256) 947-0225
     

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Stephen Samuel [mailto:samuel@bcgreen.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 2:27 PM
    To: Gary Golomb
    Cc: focus-ids@securityfocus.com
    Subject: Re: Recent Gartner IDS/IPS report

    Gary Golomb wrote:
    > An IPS is not an extension of an IDS, it's an
    > extension of a firewall. And, that does NOT mean a
    > firewall with an IDS on/next to it.

    In my mind's eye, an IPS and an IDS are essentially
    the same technology with one big difference.
    For attack scenarios which are identifiable both
    a reasonably short time, *and* with a high degree
    of certainty, the IPS will be expected to shut down
    (or otherwise respond to) the connection.

    As Gary points out, an IPS doesn't have the luxury
    of responding to some kinds of incidents -- either because
    they have too high of a false-positive rate (even .1% can
    be highly problematic with high enough traffic of certain
    types), or because by the time you realize what's going on,
    the attack may have already done it's dirty work.

    Although it doesn't hurt to have two different methodologies
    between the IPS and IDS to recognize similar attacks, my gut
    feeling is that if your IPS is bocking something that your IDS
    wouldn't report, then you have one of two problems:

    1) your IPS is blocking on false positives (generally bad)
    2) Your IDS is set to be too insensitive (bad, as a corollary
        to Gary's comments).

    I see an IPS as testing for that subset of IDS-recognizable
    issues that can be meaningfully responded to in the moment,
    with the addition of triage algorithms to decide whether
    it's serious enough for an automated response. The last
    bit would be a choice of response mechanisms for different
    attacks.

    -- 
    Stephen Samuel +1(604)876-0426                samuel@bcgreen.com
    		   http://www.bcgreen.com/~samuel/
        Powerful committed communication. Transformation touching
            the jewel within each person and bring it to life.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Attend the Black Hat Briefings & Training, July 28 - 31 in Las Vegas, the 
    world's premier technical IT security event! 10 tracks, 15 training sessions, 
    1,800 delegates from 30 nations including all of the top experts, from CSO's to 
    "underground" security specialists.  See for yourself what the buzz is about!  
    Early-bird registration ends July 3.  This event will sell out. www.blackhat.com
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Attend the Black Hat Briefings & Training, July 28 - 31 in Las Vegas, the 
    world's premier technical IT security event! 10 tracks, 15 training sessions, 
    1,800 delegates from 30 nations including all of the top experts, from CSO's to 
    "underground" security specialists.  See for yourself what the buzz is about!  
    Early-bird registration ends July 3.  This event will sell out. www.blackhat.com
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    

  • Next message: Mayank-Bhatnagar: "RE: IDS and NMS"

    Relevant Pages

    • RE: Recent Gartner IDS/IPS report
      ... > resources to properly analyze security reports, ... > replace the IDS products. ... since these same vendors compete with your ... Basing IPS entirely on IDS and making the offspring a single product is ...
      (Focus-IDS)
    • Re: Is IDS/IPS worthless?
      ... >>firewall instead of in front of it should BOTH ... >>fill in the gap left by the false sense of security firewalls give (a ... >IDS technology and I certainly believe in the usefullness of IDS. ... that is confusing IDS and NIDS together. ...
      (Focus-IDS)
    • RE: Thinking about Security rules...
      ... > Subject: Re: Thinking about Security rules... ... >>rules for the IDS. ... by which you attack. ... firewalls in series isn't nearly as nice as a stateful firewall coupled ...
      (Vuln-Dev)
    • Re: Is IDS/IPS worthless?
      ... > firewall instead of in front of it should BOTH ... > fill in the gap left by the false sense of security firewalls give (a ... > network services, and it is on the traffic related to these services ... IDS technology and I certainly believe in the usefullness of IDS. ...
      (Focus-IDS)
    • Re: [fw-wiz] How to Save The World (was: Antivirus vendor conspiracy theories)
      ... This one looks like it should burgeon into another good set of rants. ... >> then you have host based security as well to add to the mix. ... Nobody seemed to be able to make an IDS that was both dumb enough to be ... > firewall rule decisions. ...
      (Firewall-Wizards)