Page 69 - DCAP309_INFORMATION_SECURITY_AND_PRIVACY

Unit 5: Physical Security

all other traffic to pass. Intrusion prevention technology is considered by some to be an extension Notes
of intrusion detection (IDS) technology.
Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) evolved in the late 1990s to resolve ambiguities in passive
network monitoring by placing detection systems in-line. Early IPS was IDS that were able to
implement prevention commands to firewalls and access control changes to routers. This
technique fell short operationally for it created a race condition between the IDS and the exploit
as it passed through the control mechanism.

Inline IPS can be seen as an improvement upon firewall technologies (snort inline is integrated
into one), IPS can make access control decisions based on application content, rather than IP
address or ports as traditional firewalls had done.
However, in order to improve performance and accuracy of classification mapping, most IPS
use destination port in their signature format. As IPS systems were originally a literal extension
of intrusion detection systems, they continue to be related.
Intrusion prevention systems may also serve secondarily at the host level to deny potentially
malicious activity. There are advantages and disadvantages to host-based IPS compared with
network-based IPS. In many cases, the technologies are thought to be complementary.
An Intrusion Prevention System must also be a very good Intrusion Detection System to enable
a low rate of false positives. Some IPS systems can also prevent yet to be discovered attacks, such
as those caused by a Buffer overflow.

The role of an IPS in a network is often confused with access control and application-layer
firewalls. There are some notable differences in these technologies. While all share similarities,
how they approach network or system security is fundamentally different.
An IPS is typically designed to operate completely invisibly on a network. IPS products do not
typically claim an IP address on the protected network but may respond directly to any traffic in
a variety of ways. (Common IPS responses include dropping packets, resetting connections,
generating alerts, and even quarantining intruders.) While some IPS products have the ability to
implement firewall rules, this is often a mere convenience and not a core function of the product.
Moreover, IPS technology offers deeper insight into network operations providing information
on overly active hosts, bad logons, inappropriate content and many other network and
application layer functions.
Application firewalls are a very different type of technology. An application firewall uses
proxies to perform firewall access control for network and application-layer traffic. Some
application-layer firewalls have the ability to do some IPS-like functions, such as enforcing RFC
specifications on network traffic. Also, some application layer firewalls have also integrated
IPS-style signatures into their products to provide real-time analysis and blocking of traffic.

Application firewalls do have IP addresses on their ports and are directly addressable. Moreover,
they use full proxy features to decode and reassemble packets. Not all IPS perform full proxy-
like processing. Also, application-layer firewalls tend to focus on firewall capabilities, with IPS
capabilities as add-on. While there are numerous similarities between the two technologies,
they are not identical and are not interchangeable.
Unified Threat Management (UTM), or sometimes called “Next Generation Firewalls” are also
a different breed of products entirely. UTM products bring together multiple security capabilities
on to a single platform.
A typical UTM platform will provide firewall, VPN, anti-virus, web filtering, intrusion prevention
and anti-spam capabilities. Some UTM appliances are derived from IPS products such as 3Com’s
X-series products.

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