I think we can all agree that IPS is no replacement for Patch
Management. My point is that there is no demonstrable ROI that I have
seen for IPS yet there appears to be a perception that it is a more cost
effective way of dealing with the problem. This is likely a result of
the parroting by some IPS vendors of a virtual patching concept. I am
open to the case if it can be shown, this is why I asked anyone to
provide an actual ROI.
The way I see it, an IPS can attempt to contain your infestation and
help reduce your legal exposure from outbound attacks that would
otherwise make it to your partners... This is a value I can quantify and
the best use case I have seen for IPS. The problem I have with it is
that a properly implemented firewall can most likely do the same and
provide much better overall value.
With IPS we also have to consider that it is often implemented to "fail
open" allowing traffic to pass unmolested in the case of a failure. If
we can all agree that system overload is often the case in worm
outbreaks then we have a bad situation brewing. I predict that the
failure will ultimately result in containment being lost when the IPS is
overwhelmed. I would like to test that prediction IRL if I get a chance.
Does anyone have real world data surrounding the failure cases under
extreme load?
Cure, Samuel J wrote:
I agree with Paul that IPS is not a solution to replace existing patch
management solutions. In fact, I would not even rely on it to "buy time"
until a consolidated update is ready (such as quarterly). There are too many
opportunities for exposure while waiting for the consolidated update even
WITH IPS installed. There are many encoders available these days that allow
for the most commonly detected exploits to be concealed over the wire and
bypass IDS/IPS systems.
I do agree however with the resource requirements necessary for testing and
rolling out each patch or hotfix.
Scott, to answer your question on cost effective, perhaps IPS will more than
likely be less expensive than the resources required to test and update
patches.
There are many factors to consider during this evaluation as well such as
-standard builds and services that are not needed.
-several patch management systems are available today that are starting to
take away from the argument of patch test resources being unavailable
-IPS technology is being developed that provide more holistic analysis to
detect anomalies for zero day and newer exploits. These may have ability to
verify encoded exploit packets as well.
Just my thoughts,
Scure
-----Original Message-----
From: Palmer, Paul (ISSAtlanta) [mailto:PPalmer@iss.net]
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2004 10:36 AM
To: Jason; Scott Wimer
Cc: Daniel; focus-ids@securityfocus.com
Subject: RE: IPS, alternative solutions
Jason,
The ROI in a medium+ organization does not come from using IPS as a
patch replacement system. The IPS lets the organization schedule the
patches at its convenience instead of the de facto schedule implied by
the release of the patch. That is, without something like an IPS in
place, the organization needs to apply patches as quickly as possible to
maintain their security posture. This is problematic for many reasons.
However, there are two common, major ones. First, it can take months
(even longer) to deploy a patch to all levels of an organization. During
this time the organization remains vulnerable. Second, it is difficult
to manage multiple overlapping patch and/or frequent patch processes.
The IPS allows them to delay patch installation until it is convenient
and this is where the ROI materializes. The IPS protects the
organization until it can deploy the patch everywhere. The ROI here is
obvious when a worm hits before you can complete the patch installation.
It turns out that the cost to install a dozen patches at once (even from
multiple vendors) is not much more than the cost to install one critical
patch. So an organization that can defer all patch installation to the
beginning of each quarter for example can reap huge dividends over the
cost of rolling out each patch individually. They only need to test one
set of changes prior to applying them (instead of several per quarter).
In addition, the number of different configurations present in the
organization at any moment is reduced, thereby lowering support costs.
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Jason [mailto:security@brvenik.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 3:47 PM
To: Scott Wimer
Cc: Daniel; focus-ids@securityfocus.com
Subject: Re: IPS, alternative solutions
I've heard of no medium+ sized business that is considering deploying
inline technology on the internals of the network in a sufficiently
pervasive manner that there would be any measurable benefit from the
technology over patching and asset management.
I would be seriously interested in an ROI that can demonstrate savings.
The simple question is how is inline packet scrubbing easier and more
cost effective than patching?
Scott Wimer wrote:
Daniel,
I agree with your assessment. What I have encountered in the
financial sector though is a desire to have the packets "scrubbed"
before they reach the servers. People _want_ to deploy network based
IPS tools because it is easier and more cost effective. That it
doesn't seem to be possible yet is another story altogether.
Regards, Scott Wimer
On Tue, 2004-09-14 at 06:01, Daniel wrote:
So far there has been a load of talk discussing which is the better
technology. Personally i dont think IPS is ready for the big time.
Yeah its great for small mum and dad networks, but for large
financial networks with billions of pounds flowing across them, would
you trust a technology to think and block what it seems as bad
traffic?
So what are the alternatives? I'd say more host based protection such
as:
- Stack protection - Application level firewalls
(ModSecurity/SecureIIS) - Host based firewalls
I'm interested to see what everyone else feels are alternatives to
IPS
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