Re: IDS is dead, etc

[<broyds () rogers com>]

What I think is dead is a standalone IDS as a product to be run on client network independent of other 
security/networking systems on the LAN and independent of other IDS systems run at other places. Putting up a $50K IDS 
infrastructure on a LAN without paying 3 or 4 $50K/year experts is not useful. If your assets are only worth $100K/year 
to you, it is better not to waste your money.

  To mangle Bruce Schneier "IDS is not a product, IDS is a process". To properly use an IDS, one needs to correlate 
output with other systems, both internal to a particular enterprise network and to systems on the Internet as a whole, 
which is often better done by buying a service rather than a product. 
  I see that IDS will evolve more and more into part of the managed security field so that the detailed configuration 
of an IDS is done by experts who can also monitor your network and re-configure it as exploits and vulnerabilities 
become available, correlate your detection with others that they are monitoring and give you value added in describing 
options on any incident. 
  IDS will become the data monitoring part of security management, not a separate system on its own.

> From: Martin Roesch <roesch () sourcefire com>
> Date: 2003/06/19 Thu AM 11:57:13 EDT
> To: focus-ids () securityfocus com
> Subject: IDS is dead, etc
>
> Just to throw my hat into the ring on this topic in this particular
> forum, I thought I'd comment. (like I don't get enough email as it
> is...)
>
> Boiling the Gartner report down, here are my take aways:
>
> 1) IDSes produce too many false positives (i.e. the quality of the
> information they produce is low)
>
> 2) IDSes produce too much data (i.e. the quantity of information they
> produce is high)
>
> 3) There is no solution to these problems, therefore IDS is dead and we
> should all buy in-line IPS, er, "deep content inspection firewalls"!
>
> So, is there any way to make the quality of data coming out of the IDS
> higher while at the same time diminishing the amount of information
> generated?  We've been talking about this exact topic on this list since
> 1999 on and off and I think all the IDS vendors have ideas how to
> achieve this goal by integrating network maps and host/service
> identification into the IDS's world view.  If those ideas should
> actually make their way to market, would that make the systems more
> useful?  I believe so.  (At this point I usually pitch Sourcefire, but
> I'll spare you all.)
>
> IDS is all about giving people awareness of what's happening on their
> networks independent of the network management picture or the other
> security infrastructure.  Deploying security infrastructure without
> having a mechanism to monitor that infrastructure's behavior and
> efficacy is like rolling out a spacecraft with all of the telemetry
> systems removed, it may be doing its job but when something goes wrong
> (and it will) you will be relying on data coming out of failed/bypassed
> systems to try to effect repairs.
>
> The whole "ASICs will save us all" part of the argument is where I
> really start scratching my head.  How do ASICs, which tend to exchange
> flexibility for performance, suddenly become these hyperintelligent
> application layer analysis devices with enough flexibility to evolve
> with the relatively rapid changes in the application protocols?  NPUs I
> can see, but ASICs really don't seem like an appropriate solution here. 
> I believe wishful thinking might be driving this line of argument...
>
> Finally, we have the "if you can detect the attacks, why don't you just
> prevent them?!?!?" argument.  What happens if I can't be 100% certain
> about the attack?  Blocking attacks is an all-or-nothing proposition, if
> you're wrong you're 100% wrong and you just DoSed yourself, what are the
> chances that large enterprise networks are going to trust their critical
> infrastructure to that kind of system? 
>
> Anyway, I hope that wasn't too much of a rehash of other people's
> thoughts and you guys found it somewhat insightful.  Obviously I think
> Gartner is being inflammatory and creating their own hype cycle, but
> I've got a vested interest in this technological field.  I believe that
> noisy, inaccurate IDS is definitely dying due to a number of factors,
> but it's the vendors/developers themselves that are killing it.
>
>
>      -Marty
>
> -- 
> Martin Roesch - Founder/CTO, Sourcefire Inc. - (410)290-1616
> Sourcefire: Snort-based Enterprise Intrusion Detection Infrastructure
> roesch () sourcefire com - http://www.sourcefire.com
> Snort: Open Source Network IDS - http://www.snort.org
>
>
>
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Attend the Black Hat Briefings & Training, July 28 - 31 in Las Vegas, the 
world's premier technical IT security event! 10 tracks, 15 training sessions, 
1,800 delegates from 30 nations including all of the top experts, from CSO's to 
"underground" security specialists.  See for yourself what the buzz is about!  
Early-bird registration ends July 3.  This event will sell out. www.blackhat.com
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