Intrusion Prevention System

Good day, my name is Ben Omsels and I am in my first year of training as an IT specialist for system integration at suresecure. I have already been able to gain an extensive and exciting insight into the world of IT security. From major incidents to individual endpoint security. I am currently familiarising myself with many different areas, which is how this article about the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) came about.

I am very excited to see what the future holds for me at suresecure and hope you enjoy reading it.

What happens if the simple anti-virus programme stops, fails to detect a malicious file and the threat simply passes by? The programme needs a backup or a sparring partner that intervenes in an emergency and raises the security level once again.
And this is where the Intrusion Prevention System comes in.
It acts as additional protection at various points in your network, i.e. as an additional instance between your systems and external threats. As a rule, the IPS sits directly behind the firewall. In contrast to conventional firewall systems, the IPS is able to recognise and automatically ward off attacks on the network. It monitors all network traffic and scans for potential threats.
Own display
It works according to three possible detection systems
Signature-based detection: The IPS uses predefined lists of known malware. If one of these is detected, appropriate countermeasures are taken
Anomaly-based detection: In this form, the system looks for conspicuous or unexpected behaviour and blocks access if necessary
Guideline-based detection: Admins define rules or guidelines in advance. If an event violates one of these rules, a warning message is sent and action is taken if necessary
If the IPS detects something, it sends a message to the administrator, discards affected network packets, resets connections and blocks actions. This prevents the execution of exploits and avoids a malware outbreak.
IPS protects you from threats such as
Denial of Service (DoS) attacks
Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks
Different types of exploits
Worms
Viruses
What makes a good IPS ?
In principle, one thing is particularly important: the IPS must recognise many things! The more an IPS detects, whether through a good configuration or a large database, the higher its quality and therefore the higher the security level. The database used by the system, which in turn is filled with the corresponding malware signatures, should always be updated. In the best case scenario, however, an IPS is never alone. The best use is when it is integrated as flexibly as possible and at as many points in the network as possible to cover the largest possible area.
Networking the systems can simplify administration.
What makes a good IPS?
In principle, one thing is particularly important: the IPS must recognise many things! The more an IPS detects, whether through a good configuration or a large database, the higher its quality and therefore the higher the security level. The database used by the system, which in turn is filled with the corresponding malware signatures, should always be updated. In the best case scenario, however, an IPS is never alone. The best use is when it is integrated as flexibly as possible and at as many points in the network as possible to cover the largest possible area.
Another point that not only increases security, but also makes administrative work easier, is the networking of all IPS systems with each other. Especially when there is extensive networking in a company, monitoring software alone is no longer enough. Several pairs of eyes are required, which means that a lot has to be managed at the same time. However, if the systems are networked with each other, you only need one interface that allows you to manage everything quickly and easily.
What are the benefits of an IPS?
In addition to the enormously increased level of protection, an IPS offers two other advantages that are not so obvious:
Everything runs almost completely automatically, This eliminates a large amount of work and saves resources
A good IPS recognises existing security vulnerabilities independently of the manufacturer and closes them provisionally until the manufacturer has released its own patches
How does suresecure use the IPS?
We work with a combination of two systems in order to achieve extremely comprehensive protection for the entire network. We network an active system, the Intrusion Prevention System with a passive system, the Intrusion Detection System (IDS). We work with the systems of our best-of-breed Trend Micro.
We use Splunk to ensure that we do not lose the overview with such extensive use of multiple IPS systems and other network operation monitoring software. In this context, Splunk serves as a superordinate monitoring platform that allows us to monitor all logs and reports from all corners of a network in one central location.
The correlation of all data and the automatic alerting of anomalies gives us a well-prepared overview of what is happening in the network and reduces security gaps to a minimum.
Max Mustermann
If you would like to find out more about our approach, please contact us. We will be happy to advise you and, above all, safely!