I've seen several replies saying essentially the same thing: "This is a
feature of the switch - not the IDS."
However, this is only partially true.
It is certainly a function of the switch to be able to copy traffic to a
destination port using something like SPAN, VACL Capture, or other similar
features. Many switches support sending this captured traffic to an 802.1q
or ISL trunk port. All currently shipping Cisco switches, to the best of my
knowledge, support this.
Most IDS products should be able to at least analyze traffic that arrives
via trunk ports. All Cisco IDS/IPS products have supported this for as long
as I can remember. Additionally, Cisco IDS/IPS sensors are able to track
the VLAN traffic arrives on through the trunk port, rather than simply
grouping the traffic all together. The event action can be dependent on
which VLAN the malicious traffic was seen on. In the alert that is
triggered, the VLAN from the trunk port is displayed.
I don't know what vendors support this capability, but it is certainly
supported by Cisco sensors.
If we talk about IPS instead of IDS, the feature remains for us. You can
plug an interface on a Cisco IPS sensor into a trunk port, and the sensor
can treat each VLAN on the trunk separately.
Gary Halleen, CISSP, ISSAP
Cisco Systems, Inc.
On 2/8/07 3:00 PM, "Eric Hines" <eric.hines@appliedwatch.com> wrote:
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Trav_2:
You're talking about two separate things.
1) Cisco is a switch and you're talking about a mirror/span port.
Though, network taps > Span ports :)
2) Its not the IDS/IPS that is performing that capability, its the
switch. So its inaccurate to ask if the IDS/IPS vendors you mentioned
can do the same thing. A span port doesn't care whats hooked up to it,
whether its Snort or a sniffer.
Hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Eric Hines, GCIA, CISSP
CEO, President
Applied Watch Technologies, LLC
1095 Pingree Road
Suite 221
Crystal Lake, IL 60014
Toll Free: (877) 262-7593
Fax: (847) 854-5106
Cell: (847) 456-6785
Web: www.appliedwatch.com
Andrew Plato wrote:
If you create a mirror port and plug in any IPS/IDS, it will see the
traffic. TippingPoint, ISS, etc. All can do that.
Also, pretty much any decent managed switch can have mirror ports. This
is not unique to Cisco.
Keep in mind, you cannot do real-time IPS (intrusion prevention) in any
reliable manner this way. You have to be IN-LINE to do real-time
blocking and filtering. Passive monitoring off a mirror port only allows
you to send RSTs to stop stuff, and that is not a very reliable way to
block bad stuff.
___________________________________
Andrew Plato, CISSP, CISM
President/Principal Consultant
Anitian Enterprise Security
-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce@securityfocus.com [mailto:listbounce@securityfocus.com]
On Behalf Of trav_2@hotmail.com
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:44 AM
To: focus-ids@securityfocus.com
Subject: IPS and Trunking
Cisco has a great feature where I can configure all traffic on a switch
to go to a trunk port, plug in the IPS/IDS to the trunk port and see all
traffic. Can other vendors, such as Sourcefire, TippingPoint, ISS do
this?
Thanks,
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