The main difference between them is that IDS is a monitoring system, while IPS is a control system. IDS doesn’t alter the network packets in any way, whereas IPS prevents the packet from delivery based on the contents of the packet, much like how a firewall prevents traffic by IP address.
In addition, the intrusion prevention and intrusion detection system are network security/threat prevention technology. IPS investigate network traffic flows to detect and prevent vulnerability exploits. An Intrusion detection system is a passive system that scans traffic and reports back on threats and sends an alarm to the administrator, dropping the malicious packet.
Additionally, there are positives and negatives to using IDS vs IPS. IPS helps to respond to attacks more quickly and can block them before they actually enter the network. On the other hand, false positives in IPS can block legitimate traffic.
How should organization’s deal with false positive alerts from IDS/IPS systems? Should every alert be investigated? What steps can be taken to make an IDS/IPS less “noisy”?
Vetting the large of volume IDS/IPS system transactions in most organizations is exhausting and typically does not provide much value to security. It’s really not feasible to review each and every transaction from a resource perspective. In order to cut down on the number of false positives organizations should review the traffic rule configuration(s) on the system periodically to ensure they accurately filtering/blocking the correct traffic instances. Additionally, changes in technologies, for example the operating system, could occur over time so reviewing the rule configurations would help an organization make adjustments to the IDS/IPS traffic rules accordingly.
Absolutely, The IDS/IPS rules take a while to fine-tune when initially setting up the system and then should be reviewed regularly and reconfigured as needed. Too many false positives can cause the team to miss true, important issues.
Internal firewalls help minimizing the attack surface using micro-segmentation, which divides the network into granular zones that are secured separately
Using intelligent automation to deploy and update security policies based on “known good” behavior. A host-based firewall is a piece of firewall software that runs on an individual computer or device connected to a network. These types of firewalls are a granular way to protect the individual hosts from viruses and malware, and to control the spread of these harmful infections throughout the network. Both of the firewalls are necessary to implement Defense in Depth strategy, multiple security measures to protect the integrity of information. This way of thinking is used to cover all angles of business security – intentionally being redundant when necessary. If one line of defense is compromised, additional layers of defense are in place to ensure that threats don’t slip through the cracks. This method addresses the security vulnerabilities that inevitably exist in technology, personnel, and operations within a network.
Firewall logs should be reviewed daily, if not multiple times each day. This is the most labor intensive part of firewall management per Boyle and Panko. The goal of reviewing firewall logs is to identify unusual traffic patterns. An administrator can look for the top-ten source IP addresses whose packets were dropped, compare DNS failures to previous points in time, etc. Completing this daily helps the organization to detect threats early and work to address them.
I agree with you. Firewall logs needs to be reviewed daily and properly given priority of escalation, should there be something to be flagged. Such as the DoS Attacks traffic passing through with maximum speed.
Deployment of a single border firewall is not enough to keep an organization protected. Bad actors can send encrypted packets to get past firewalls, find misconfiguration or weakness in a particular firewall, etc. No border firewall can be trusted to give 100% protection. Without any additional internal protection, it would be a nightmare for the organization once a hacker got past the border firewall.
Hi Oluwaseun,
While uncommon today, unified threat management (UTM) combines traditional firewall filtering with many forms of filtering, including antivirus and spam filtering. Since the approach embraces both traditional filtering methods and anti-virus filtering, it only has the processing power to be used in smaller firms or branch offices of larger firms.
Hi Elizabeth,
You are right about unitfied threat management (UTM) combines layered supports such as the anti-virus, anti-spyware and more of network firewalling tool, intrusion detection software and intrusion prevention to ffilter and solve network related security issues for securing organization assets.
yes, we can use a stateless firewall for small businesses but the main goal is to protect systems, company documents safe from Attackers. Stateless firewalls are designed to protect networks based on static information such as source and destination.
I think you missed reading part 6.8 section in the firewall chapter, the Demilitarized zone is a subnet that contains all of the servers and applications proxy firewalls accessible via the internet.
Adding on to what Mohammed said, they exist to add an additional layer of security to an organization’s local area connection, as the external network node (internet) is only able to access what is exposed in the DMZ. It gets its name from “demilitarized zone”, think the area between North/South Korea during the Korean War which was a ‘neutral’ zone.
It is interesting to see real geographic location naming network piece of security as Mohammed refers. I think it’s clever to name isolated networks between the Internet and private network as DMZ. It refers to the North/South Korea area in which military action was not permitted.
Yes, absolutely. A firewall is a great tool on the border between the company’s network and the internet to help prevent unwanted traffic. However, there are other tools that can help secure a network. A company can implement an IPS to protect the network from specific attacks. They can also use an IDS to help detect certain attacks and have the incident response team respond to them promptly.
There are several ways to secure a network such as access controls, anti-malware software, application security, network segmentation, password policies, VPN, training, and education. However, as Ryan mentioned I believe a firewall is a great tool to have in place because it provides monitoring of traffic, protection against trojans, hacker presentation, access control, and better privacy. I think it’s great that a single implementation covers more than one piece of security control. But sometimes it might be pricy and complex for organizations.
Hi Hang,
I think the only time it is difficult or nearly impossible to modify packets would be in the packet assembly stage. Otherwise, certain programs are available to edit already created or captured packets and strip them of their headers. From my understanding, a man-in-the-middle attack also has the capacity of intercepting communications between two parties and/or modifying traffic.
I agree with your point. I would also add that as long as the packet has been encrypted, the contents are not able to be changed. However, it depends on what level the packet is encrypted at. For example, if you have an SSL/TLS encryption being used then the packet could potentially still be modified at the Internet layer. Whereas if you were using an IPSec VPN the packet could not.
What are the differences between Palo Alto and Checkpoint firewalls? And which one would you recommend would be best to use if I worked as a Network Architecture for a Hospital?
Palo Alto firewalls are most beneficial when features, management, & performance are key factors. Checkpoint has a wide array of security features, making it ideal for a company seeking an integrated approach to complex/hybrid environments. On the plus, Palo Alto is a good choice for all company’s that prioritize management quality/features over price, but can take a performance hit when it is over managed. It also does not have firmware updates often, resulting in massive updates that take a long time to stabilize. Checkpoint firewalls are known for optimizing network performance & efficiently inspecting connections, but have slow technical support and also have unstable firmware issues. Based on my research, I would recommend Palo Alto firewalls, because they have models that are designed specifically to protect patient data while encouraging innovation. They also seem to be more favorable in the healthcare industry when compared to Checkpoint firewalls.
The pro of attack signature-based rules is that when an attack signature is identified it can be added to the firewall to easily stop the attack. The downside is that zero-day attacks occur before an attack’s signature is defined, so a firewall cannot stop the attack. A pro of anomaly detection rules is that they detect unusual patterns which may hint to a possible attack, and thus they can stop attacks that have no defined signature. The downside is that they are too inaccurate, generating too many false positives to be viable for most companies. A time it would be beneficial to use only anomaly detection rules is when the goal is to search for hard to find significant events such as fraud or network intrusion.. On the other hand, it would be beneficial to strictly use attack signature-based rules when familiar attacks are the most common occurrence.
What is the difference between IPS and IDS?
The main difference between them is that IDS is a monitoring system, while IPS is a control system. IDS doesn’t alter the network packets in any way, whereas IPS prevents the packet from delivery based on the contents of the packet, much like how a firewall prevents traffic by IP address.
In addition, the intrusion prevention and intrusion detection system are network security/threat prevention technology. IPS investigate network traffic flows to detect and prevent vulnerability exploits. An Intrusion detection system is a passive system that scans traffic and reports back on threats and sends an alarm to the administrator, dropping the malicious packet.
Additionally, there are positives and negatives to using IDS vs IPS. IPS helps to respond to attacks more quickly and can block them before they actually enter the network. On the other hand, false positives in IPS can block legitimate traffic.
What is the effective mitigation method when there are loopholes, exceptions, or attacks (DDoS) on the firewall?
How should organization’s deal with false positive alerts from IDS/IPS systems? Should every alert be investigated? What steps can be taken to make an IDS/IPS less “noisy”?
Vetting the large of volume IDS/IPS system transactions in most organizations is exhausting and typically does not provide much value to security. It’s really not feasible to review each and every transaction from a resource perspective. In order to cut down on the number of false positives organizations should review the traffic rule configuration(s) on the system periodically to ensure they accurately filtering/blocking the correct traffic instances. Additionally, changes in technologies, for example the operating system, could occur over time so reviewing the rule configurations would help an organization make adjustments to the IDS/IPS traffic rules accordingly.
Absolutely, The IDS/IPS rules take a while to fine-tune when initially setting up the system and then should be reviewed regularly and reconfigured as needed. Too many false positives can cause the team to miss true, important issues.
What security roles do internal firewalls play as compared to host firewalls? Why are both types necessary when securing a network?
Internal firewalls help minimizing the attack surface using micro-segmentation, which divides the network into granular zones that are secured separately
Using intelligent automation to deploy and update security policies based on “known good” behavior. A host-based firewall is a piece of firewall software that runs on an individual computer or device connected to a network. These types of firewalls are a granular way to protect the individual hosts from viruses and malware, and to control the spread of these harmful infections throughout the network. Both of the firewalls are necessary to implement Defense in Depth strategy, multiple security measures to protect the integrity of information. This way of thinking is used to cover all angles of business security – intentionally being redundant when necessary. If one line of defense is compromised, additional layers of defense are in place to ensure that threats don’t slip through the cracks. This method addresses the security vulnerabilities that inevitably exist in technology, personnel, and operations within a network.
What does a firewall do if it cannot keep up with the traffic volume?
It will drop all packets because it becomes overloaded with volume of packets it cannot process during the filtering process.
Hi Shubham, if the firewall cannot keep up with the traffic volume, it won’t be able to process further steps and end up dropping all the packets.
How often should the Firewall Log File be checked/looked into?
Firewall logs should be reviewed daily, if not multiple times each day. This is the most labor intensive part of firewall management per Boyle and Panko. The goal of reviewing firewall logs is to identify unusual traffic patterns. An administrator can look for the top-ten source IP addresses whose packets were dropped, compare DNS failures to previous points in time, etc. Completing this daily helps the organization to detect threats early and work to address them.
I agree with you. Firewall logs needs to be reviewed daily and properly given priority of escalation, should there be something to be flagged. Such as the DoS Attacks traffic passing through with maximum speed.
Is the deployment of a single border firewall enough to keep an organization protected? If not, what threats/risks do they face?
Deployment of a single border firewall is not enough to keep an organization protected. Bad actors can send encrypted packets to get past firewalls, find misconfiguration or weakness in a particular firewall, etc. No border firewall can be trusted to give 100% protection. Without any additional internal protection, it would be a nightmare for the organization once a hacker got past the border firewall.
What is unified threat management described in the Boyle and Panko?
Hi Oluwaseun,
While uncommon today, unified threat management (UTM) combines traditional firewall filtering with many forms of filtering, including antivirus and spam filtering. Since the approach embraces both traditional filtering methods and anti-virus filtering, it only has the processing power to be used in smaller firms or branch offices of larger firms.
Hi Elizabeth,
You are right about unitfied threat management (UTM) combines layered supports such as the anti-virus, anti-spyware and more of network firewalling tool, intrusion detection software and intrusion prevention to ffilter and solve network related security issues for securing organization assets.
Most corporate border firewalls are stateful firewalls. Is there a situation where it would be best to use a stateless firewall?
yes, we can use a stateless firewall for small businesses but the main goal is to protect systems, company documents safe from Attackers. Stateless firewalls are designed to protect networks based on static information such as source and destination.
What is the DMZ?
I think you missed reading part 6.8 section in the firewall chapter, the Demilitarized zone is a subnet that contains all of the servers and applications proxy firewalls accessible via the internet.
Adding on to what Mohammed said, they exist to add an additional layer of security to an organization’s local area connection, as the external network node (internet) is only able to access what is exposed in the DMZ. It gets its name from “demilitarized zone”, think the area between North/South Korea during the Korean War which was a ‘neutral’ zone.
It is interesting to see real geographic location naming network piece of security as Mohammed refers. I think it’s clever to name isolated networks between the Internet and private network as DMZ. It refers to the North/South Korea area in which military action was not permitted.
Is there other measures or methods outside of a firewall that can help secure a network?
Hi Ornella,
Yes, absolutely. A firewall is a great tool on the border between the company’s network and the internet to help prevent unwanted traffic. However, there are other tools that can help secure a network. A company can implement an IPS to protect the network from specific attacks. They can also use an IDS to help detect certain attacks and have the incident response team respond to them promptly.
Hi Ornella.
There are several ways to secure a network such as access controls, anti-malware software, application security, network segmentation, password policies, VPN, training, and education. However, as Ryan mentioned I believe a firewall is a great tool to have in place because it provides monitoring of traffic, protection against trojans, hacker presentation, access control, and better privacy. I think it’s great that a single implementation covers more than one piece of security control. But sometimes it might be pricy and complex for organizations.
Can a packet be changed? If not, please explain why not.
Hi Hang,
I think the only time it is difficult or nearly impossible to modify packets would be in the packet assembly stage. Otherwise, certain programs are available to edit already created or captured packets and strip them of their headers. From my understanding, a man-in-the-middle attack also has the capacity of intercepting communications between two parties and/or modifying traffic.
Hi Elizabeth,
I agree with your point. I would also add that as long as the packet has been encrypted, the contents are not able to be changed. However, it depends on what level the packet is encrypted at. For example, if you have an SSL/TLS encryption being used then the packet could potentially still be modified at the Internet layer. Whereas if you were using an IPSec VPN the packet could not.
In what environments would an IDPS be implemented instead of an IDS?
What are the differences between Palo Alto and Checkpoint firewalls? And which one would you recommend would be best to use if I worked as a Network Architecture for a Hospital?
Palo Alto firewalls are most beneficial when features, management, & performance are key factors. Checkpoint has a wide array of security features, making it ideal for a company seeking an integrated approach to complex/hybrid environments. On the plus, Palo Alto is a good choice for all company’s that prioritize management quality/features over price, but can take a performance hit when it is over managed. It also does not have firmware updates often, resulting in massive updates that take a long time to stabilize. Checkpoint firewalls are known for optimizing network performance & efficiently inspecting connections, but have slow technical support and also have unstable firmware issues. Based on my research, I would recommend Palo Alto firewalls, because they have models that are designed specifically to protect patient data while encouraging innovation. They also seem to be more favorable in the healthcare industry when compared to Checkpoint firewalls.
Are there any protocols that have a problem with NAT? If so can you name one?
What are the pros and cons of using attack signature-based rules vs anomaly detection rules? When would it be beneficial to only use one or the other?
The pro of attack signature-based rules is that when an attack signature is identified it can be added to the firewall to easily stop the attack. The downside is that zero-day attacks occur before an attack’s signature is defined, so a firewall cannot stop the attack. A pro of anomaly detection rules is that they detect unusual patterns which may hint to a possible attack, and thus they can stop attacks that have no defined signature. The downside is that they are too inaccurate, generating too many false positives to be viable for most companies. A time it would be beneficial to use only anomaly detection rules is when the goal is to search for hard to find significant events such as fraud or network intrusion.. On the other hand, it would be beneficial to strictly use attack signature-based rules when familiar attacks are the most common occurrence.
What is the reasoning behind UTM firewalls being “good in one area and lacking in others”?
Where does a firewall fit in the security model?
What is the difference between firewalls and IDS’s?