Re: How should an Internet connection/firewall be designed?

["R. DuFresne" <dufresne () sysinfo com>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, AMuse wrote:

> > How many companies have two serial firewalls from different vendors?
>
>
> > How many companies have an IPS/deep-packet-inspection device between the
> > firewall and the border router?
> >
> > How many companies still use IDS?
> >
> > How many companies have some form of deep packet inspection device in
> > front of their DMZ web servers?  What do they use?
>
>
> My guess to all four questions above would be "Few small companies, some
> medium sized companies, many large companies and very many government
> agencies".
>
> > It seems like the added complexity and multiple devices will increase
> > management costs and may actually decrease security and reliability.
> > Our current design may be rather simple but in over 12 years we have had
> > less than a couple of hours of down time and have not had a detected
> > breakin to our internal network.
>
> In general, I believe all added complexity increases management costs
> and, if poorly managed, may decrease security and reliability.  The
> question is what is your budget, what's the trade-offs between security
> and availability, and what is the data worth to you compared to the above?
>
> Incidentally, not having a detected break-in to the internal network is
> not a great yardstick for how good your security is. For instance, a
> small company with no analysts might have a dozen attackers rootkitting
> them and not know it. :)


I find that the lack of mention in many such posts and requests like this 
these days do not even mention the best, oldest, and cheapest of network 
based IPS systems, the screening router....I guess in these days of 
consolidated appliances worth hugh budgets that simple, sweet, and fairly 
inexpensive to setup and maintain is no longer kosher.




Thanks,

Ron DuFresne
- -- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
         admin & senior security consultant:  sysinfo.com
                         http://sysinfo.com
Key fingerprint = 9401 4B13 B918 164C 647A  E838 B2DF AFCC 94B0 6629

...We waste time looking for the perfect lover
instead of creating the perfect love.

                 -Tom Robbins <Still Life With Woodpecker>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFFsTBhst+vzJSwZikRAtymAKCv6hgkALfFdZ9yEST6mjSRoxVXYACeKKn8
zpkC8OrXK6xd+1tIvdQg7ZU=
=04LJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________________________________
firewall-wizards mailing list
firewall-wizards () listserv icsalabs com
https://listserv.icsalabs.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards