From: Kelly Dowd [mailto:loris65@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 3:26 PM
I doubt there is any licensing of base signatures between vendors
(signature engines vary greatly between products, you can't just 'use'
another products sigs). You will find that some developers look at
existing signature sets to get 'ideas', but it's far from a
one-for-one copy. Companies must develop their own sigs just like
they develop their own appliances... it's a total package.
Actually there is a thriving commercial market for signatures'
databases. I think that this market is natural due to two reasons:
a. More and more unified boxed do IDS in addition to other features. It
is very difficult to maintain the IP required for all those features and
buying the know-how from specialists is a good way to go.
b. Vulnerability based signatures are becoming just one of the detection
tools in the arsenal of a good intrusion detection system. Behavioral
technologies, misuse technologies more advanced than signatures and
positive logic (protocol compliance for example) are complementing
traditional vulnerably signatures. Again, licensing the signatures part
of the product is a viable alternative.
~ Ofer
Ofer Shezaf
OWASP Israel Chair
http://www.owasp.org/local/israel.html
CTO, Breach Security
Phone (US): +1 (760) 268.1924 ext. 702
Phone (Israel): +972 (9) 956.0036 ext.212
Cell: +972 (54) 443.1119
ofers@breach.com
http://www.breach.com
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