RE: Sources for Extranet Designs?

["Don Parker" <dparker () rigelksecurity com>]

<quote> IDS is all goodness, but what to do with the output?

Well this issue has been beaten to death I believe, however here is my two cents worth 
on the subject anyways. The IDS still has to be properly tuned to begin with, and by 
that I mean exclude sigatures for services not being offered and the likes. Not only 
that one also has to tweak the signatures there for optimal use on your network. Every 
network has its unique properties that have to be catered to. 

Also as we all know the person who is actually looking at the IDS data needs to have 
their stuff together skills wise. Putting someone there with little to no knowledge of 
tcp/ip and other keys area's is just a waste of everyones time and money. The hardware 
itslef is normally quite excellent. The person themself must either learn on their own 
or be trained at the employers cost. This need not take long actually whether it be 
through SANS type training or the kind offered by the company I work with. There is no 
quick fix to bringing someone up to speed. Once they do have knowledge of some key areas 
though managing the output of an IDS is easily done whether it be gigs of megs.

Cheers!

Don


-------------------------------------------
Don Parker, GCIA
Intrusion Detection Specialist
Rigel Kent Security & Advisory Services Inc
www.rigelksecurity.com
ph :613.249.8340
fax:613.249.8319
--------------------------------------------

On Feb 24, Chris Blask <chris () protegonetworks com> wrote:

Quoting Don Parker <dparker () rigelksecurity com>:
> Yes indeed IPS is an excellent technology that is slowly maturing. There is 
still nothing wrong with the IDS though. Where the problem resides though is 
in the human interface to it. A distinct lack of knowledge, and sometimes 
education if the main problem when it comes to these technologies. I am 
however beating a dead horse vis a vis this in this mailing list. Heh, one of 
the main gripes I hear is the huge amount of data to cull through that is 
generated by an IPS/IDS. Were they up to speed on how to sift that data using 
bpf filters/bit masking there would not be a problem :-)

The human interface is the entire problem, and if you set the level of 
expertise found in the human at the lowest point found on the distribution 
chart of network operators you get a view of the shape of the solution...

IPS is fine, but it seems to me to simply be an evolution of the firewall as 
opposed to anything particularly new.  The two questions are:

o  Do network owners want to have yet another shell of perimeter security (and 
do they want it from another new vendor with it's own logistic infrastructure)?
o  If you made IPS devices, it would be good so soak up info from all of the 
other vendors.  But if you compete with those other vendors, why would they 
help you do it better?

IDS is all goodness, but what to do with the output?

-chris

> Cheers!
>
> Don
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Don Parker, GCIA
> Intrusion Detection Specialist
> Rigel Kent Security & Advisory Services Inc
> www.rigelksecurity.com
> ph :613.249.8340
> fax:613.249.8319
> --------------------------------------------
>
> On Feb 23, "Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr () ranum com> wrote:
>
> Wes Noonan wrote:
> > IPS would be a no brainer for me in this scenario.
>
> I. Hate. To. Admit. It. But. You. May. Be Right.
>
> IPS hype aside, and ignoring what the Gartner idiots think,
> there's a conceptual value to the IPS concept. Basically, a
> firewall implements one of 2 policies:
>         - Permit
>         - Deny
>
> IPS (i.e.: a signature-based firewall) adds a third option to the
> policy matrix:
>         - Permit
>         - Deny
>         - Permit it as long as it is not obviously abusive (e.g.:
> signature
>                 hasn't fired)
>
> That's actually kind of cool. It means you can set up a connection
> for your business partner and let the traffic (for the minimum subset
> of
> services needed, of course!) go through. Then if the business
> partners generate traffic that is abusive or appears abusive you
> have useful information that you can further use to diagnose what
> they are doing. "Hey, mister outsourcer, why are you Nmapping
> my network?"
>
> Of course since IPS is signature-based you're going to have the
> same kind of issues with false positives as you have with an IDS.
> But, since your business partners (in theory) should be communicating
> with you in a pretty plain vanilla manner, it should work OK.
>
> mjr. 
>
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Chris Blask
Vice President, Business Development
Protego Networks Inc.

(1) 416 358 9885 - Direct
(1) 408 262 5220 - HQ
(1) 408 262 5280 - Fax

blask () protegonetworks com
www.protegonetworks.com

"The first purpose-built appliance for Real-Time Security Threat Mitigation"

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