RE: Anomaly Based Network IDS

["Shafi, Shahid" <sshafi () qualcomm com>]

Hi Drew,

I am myself evaluating Mazu's profiler. Don't you think they should do
more when it comes to packet inspection . I mean deep inspection and
atleast alarm if something is not following published RFCs etc.

Shahid

-----Original Message-----
From: Drew Simonis [mailto:simonis () myself com] 
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 10:35 AM
To: Joe Dauncey; focus-ids () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Anomaly Based Network IDS


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Joe Dauncey 
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 14:09:08 +0100 
To: focus-ids () securityfocus com 
Subject: Anomaly Based Network IDS 

> Hi, 
>
> I am interested in views on anomaly-based Network IDS. 
>
> ... 
>
> I suppose my defintion of anomaly based is that it discovers attacks
based on sampling and analysing 
> the network traffic and identifying anomalies on the norm, rather than
relying on a specific external 
> signature to tell it what to look for. 
>
> I'm thinking that this would really have to be incredibly
sophisticated as it's going to vary for every 
> network environemtn, and could potentially generate a lot of false
positives. 
> I'm especially interested in anything that would claim to be able to
detect a worm attack (and even 
> prevent it) without knowing about it already - i.e. through a
signature. 
>

You'll want to look at a couple of things.  First, there are protocol
anomaly IDS, such as Symantec
Manhunt.  These detect deviations from published RFCs and report on
that.  They can detect attacks
absent a signature, but are prone to false positives.  They take some
tuning and decently skilled
analysts.

Second, (and I think what you seem to want) you'll want to look at
profiling systems.  My favorite is
the aptly named "Profiler" by Mazu Networks.  It can, as you ask, detect
worm activity absent any
information, and (a set apart feature from the others in this space,
IMO) has a dynamic baseline.
I use it, and I like it.  

-Ds

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