Re: IPS - Cisco vs. McAfee vs. Tippingpoint

[Laurens Vets <laurens () daemon be>]

Hello Andre,

> So, how did you do your deployment, and which product did you choose and why? :)

I work for an MSSP, we mostly deploy Cisco and Proventia (sometimes 
others, depending on the customer preference).  Management is done via a 
custom solution :) The why is because our customers ask for it :)

Kind regards,
Laurens


> --- Laurens Vets <laurens () daemon be> schrieb am Mi, 29.7.2009:
>
> > Von: Laurens Vets <laurens () daemon be>
> > Betreff: Re: IPS - Cisco vs. McAfee vs. Tippingpoint
> > An: focus-ids () securityfocus com
> > CC: "Hurgel Bumpf" <l0rd_lunatic () yahoo com>
> > Datum: Mittwoch, 29. Juli 2009, 11:55
> > Hey Andre,
> >
> > > i need to protect a "realtime" website with an inline
> > IPS from (D)DOS attacks.
> >
> > That's going to be though with an IPS...
> >
> > > I had some bad experience with Tippingpoint UnityOne
> > 2400 field test. The device dropped to much sessions until
> > all connectivity was lost. After that no investigation was
> > not possible as TP logs all attack information with IP
> > address 0.0.0.0 
> > > The vendor excused this with the layered technology
> > and passing the IP address from the hardware to the logger
> > would lead to delayed packages)
> > > This is unacceptable.
> > >
> > > i'm now looking forward to test a Cisco IPS 4270-20
> > and a McAfee Network Security 4050 appliance. 
> > > Who has a good/bad experience with that devices? Is it
> > true that all devices don't log ip adresses?
> >
> > If you want to block a DDOS with an IPS, good luck with
> > that :) Normally, most devices do log source and destination
> > addresses. However, depending on the alert generated by the
> > IPS, you still might see 0.0.0.0 as source for instance.
> > This means that the alert triggered with a lot of different
> > source addresses.
> >
> > > My dream appliance would be able to run like in a 7
> > day learning mode which counts max new sessions per second,
> > max sessions per client aso. After this 7 days it creates a
> > filter with +x% of the learned values and sets these limits
> > active.
> >
> > I don't think any of the systems mentioned above can
> > actually do this. I'll talk in general terms as I only have
> > experience with Cisco (and other IPSses you didn't
> > mention).
> >
> > IPSes inspect traffic for defined patterns in that traffic.
> > They will generally see that there's a lot of traffic when
> > there's a (D)DOS (and can report some of it. E.g it will
> > notice a SYN flood for instance), but if the traffic is
> > legitimate (e.g. 'normal' HTTP requests to http://company.com, but coming from a lot of different
> > sources) it won't "see" anything bad and can't take action
> > on this traffic.
> > I don't think a Cisco IPS can do statistical analysis of
> > the traffic (E.g. "alert when this type of traffic has an
> > 80% increase over the last 2 hours").
> >
> > If an IPS sees too much packets to process (legitimate or
> > not), it will either drop them or pass them unanalyzed.
> >
> > > A big problem is that i have to install it into the
> > productive system to get the real values. I dont have any
> > fixed values regarding the new sessions per second and i
> > cant just guess and set values and render the system
> > offline. 
> >
> > Most inline IPSes can be put inline without actually
> > blocking anything, usually called learning mode or
> > monitoring mode.
> >
> > Hope this helps a bit.
> >
> > -Laurens

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