RE: Views and Correlation in Intrusion Detection

[Ron Gula <rgula () tenablesecurity com>]

> How about a "user's" POV?
>
> To be really effective, I'd like to see a system that looks at packets
> coming in to the network, compares those to packets hitting specific
> servers, "knows" if the server is vulnerable to the specific attack and
> *then* sends an alert.
>
> To do this kind of work you would need:
> 1) a db (A) with the info on each server - OS, applications,
> vulnerabilities, etc.
> 2) a detection engine that matches the IP and attack sig to the entry in
> the db (A) with its own db (B) of sigs
> 3) an escalation procedure that recognizes that attack A was successful and
> attack B has begun and therefore alerts "more aggressively".
>
> I don't want to know if an attacker is trying an overflow attack on my IMAP
> server if my IMAP server isn't vulnerable to that attack.  I could care
> less.  I also don't want to know if some box somewhere with Code Red is
> hitting my network *unless* I have a box that's susceptible to Code Red.


This is exactly what the Lightning Console does. In addition, the console
also 'knows' who owns the targeted systems and can send an alert to the
effected end users when an IDS event targets a vulnerable server.

The big issue I have with VA/IDS correlation is the accuracy of the
underlying VA database. If you are just scanning once a quarter or even
once a month, this VA database can get out of date fast. Our approach
is to use distributed scanning (multiple, tiered Nessus scanners) so you
can scan a class B in hours. We also are BETA testing a passive vulnerability
scanner which determines vulnerabilities and topology changes from watching
network sessions.

Ron Gula, CTO
Tenable Network Security
http://www.tenablesecurity.com



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