Contents
Network intrusion has become a new thing in the digital era. Phishing attacks alone steal billions of dollars each year, according to the FBI’s information. In a world where virtual attacks are no more a rarity and everyone is at risk regardless of the extent of their internet activity, there is no way you can go around without proper intrusion detection and prevention systems in place. You may be an individual subscribed to a residential internet service like the one included with Spectrum packages or a company taking advantage of business internet service from one of the top providers; as long as you are connected to the internet, you’re at risk of intrusions.
Network intrusion detection and prevention systems are used to spot intruders and hinder their malicious activity before there is any damage done. These systems include both virtual and physical systems that scan the traffic of a network either through the cloud or through on-premises. Read on to find out how these systems work and which ones are the best in the market.
Intrusion Detection System
An Intrusion detection and prevention system overlooks the traffic going through your network for any signs of unusual activity. As soon as it detects malicious activity, it goes into action to prevent it. This includes blocking the network traffic, dropping the malicious packets, or resetting the connection. It would also send a notification to the administrator, alerting them about the suspicious activity detected and stopped.
There are two types of detection techniques being used generally. One is signature-based detection, and the other is anomaly-based detection. Signature-based detection uses previously identified dangerous activity to identify new attacks. If the new attack criteria meet the one previously stored in the system it will immediately block the exploitation. The downside to this type of detection is that it will not detect or prevent new kinds of attacks.
On the other hand, the anomaly-based detection technique runs a comparison between current activity and the activity it knows as normal. If there is any discrepancy detected, it will send an alert to the administrator as well as take action to prevent the attack itself. The great thing about it is that it detects new attacks as well. However, it can also cause false positives, but that can be solved with the use of some latest technology that uses artificial intelligence to establish algorithms to set a baseline of normal.
Intrusion Prevention System
There are three types of intrusion prevention systems. Network-Based Intrusion Prevention, Host-Based Intrusion Prevention, and Wireless Intrusion Prevention System. Network-based prevention is more widely used and works right behind the firewall. A firewall blocks traffic coming into the network, whereas an IPS blocks traffic that is on the network but displays signs of a threat as per certain criteria previously stored in the memory. A host-based system is where it looks for dangerous activity among a particular host’s traffic. And wireless intrusion prevention involves monitoring and identifying any unauthorized attempt to access a Wi-Fi network.
Setting Up Network Intrusion Prevention
Some organizations choose to set up standalone network intrusion prevention systems whereas others decide to go for a unified threat management solution that also offers intrusion prevention. There is also another option available known as a next-generation firewall that also includes intrusion prevention. This solution focuses primarily on larger organizations whereas unified threat management focused on small to mediums sized companies. These solutions are available as hardware as well as cloud-based. Companies choose according to their needs and preferences.
Top Intrusion Prevention Systems
Let us look at the best IPS systems available in the market.
McAfee Network Security Platform
The McAfee NSP protects data and systems wherever they are, across the cloud, data centers, and hybrid enterprise environments. It uses artificial intelligence to detect and block any attacks on the network and can support up to 32 million connections on one appliance.
Hillstone Network-Based Intrusion Prevention System
The Hillstone NIPS offers antivirus, intrusion prevention, application control, abnormal behavior detection, advanced threat detection, cloud-based security management, cloud sandbox, and analytics performance in one appliance. It conducts in-depth packet inspection and assembling inspection of all the traffic passing through your network. It can identify over 3000 applications that include your mobile and cloud.
Trend Micro TippingPoint
Trend Micro’s TippingPoint can identify and deter malicious activity and malware lateral movement. It ensures the availability and resilience of your network, thus, improving the network performance. It can be brought into immediate action to filter out unwanted and malicious traffic without entering your MAC or IP address. The Digital Vaccine threat intelligence filters take into account the complete vulnerability footprint instead of focusing on specific attacks. It also offers a traffic inspection throughput of up to 120Gbps.
Darktrace Enterprise Immune System
The Artificial Intelligence technology of cybersecurity, this machine learning system learns the usage pattern of each user and device on the network. Then it uses this information to detect any potential threats that may otherwise go undetected. The Darktrace Enterprise Immune System is not considered an IDPS solution and neither does the company fit the category of companies providing such solutions. However, it has been included in the list because of the great protection it provides.
Cisco Firepower Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System
Anyone from a small office set up to a large enterprise can use Cisco Firepower Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System. It comes in both physical and software form offering URL based network security as well as AMP Threat Grid integration. Providing throughput ranging between 50Mbps to 60 Mbps, it is backed by Cisco’s Talos security research team.
Conclusion
We hope the article has helped you better understand what network intrusion is and how the detection and prevention systems work. Now that you know about some of the best systems available in the market, you must choose one that fits your preferences and the requirements of your organization. We are sure that you have some cybersecurity system in place but these systems will make the system airtight so you can conduct your online activities with complete peace of mind.