Data Center, Data Security

Understand Intrusion Prevention System & Its Types

There are several network security threats that organizations need to deal with. To overcome all those network threats, different solutions can be deployed such as Firewall and others. Amongst all, the Intrusion Prevention System or IPS is a great technique to get prevention from potential network threats.

Therefore, in this write-up, we are going to describe the detailed picture of IPS and cover the following topics.

• Why the Intrusion Prevention System is needed?
• What do you mean by Intrusion Prevention System?
• What are the different types of IPS?
• Final Say On IPS

So, let’s begin!!

Why Intrusion Prevention System Software Is Required?

Attackers can penetrate your network by using several approaches. Therefore, it is critically important to understand the types of attacks to take effective prevention measures. So, let’s discuss some network intrusion techniques and attacks.

• Scanning Attack: This type of attack includes sending some data packets to the network just to monitor all the details of the network such as which network topology is being used, the loopholes of the network. It also looks for the open ports of the network to insert the malicious code there.

• Buffer Overflow Attack: The buffer in the memory can store a specific amount of data. When a large amount of data is written to the buffer than it can store, which results in the overflow of data to adjacent memory locations. It may lead to a system crash and can hide an attack in another part of the system.

On top of that, there are several attacks and techniques used to affect the network system. So, it is required to have an Intrusion Detection and prevention system that identifies the threats before fully entering the system. It is just like a screening tool, designed with the intention to protect your network and computer system from potential malicious threats such as unauthorized access, malware attack, etc. Let’s discuss this with more accuracy.

What Is Intrusion Prevention System Software?

The IPS also knew as Intrusion Detection and Prevention System detects the vulnerability exploit and can prevent it too by taking certain actions based on the severity of the issue.

It is a network security prevention technology that monitors the traffic across the network. It identifies a malicious activity, maintains a log to collect the information about the activity, report the activity to the administrator and attempt to prevent it.

How Does Intrusion Prevention System Works?

IPS works by scanning the traffic across the network. Unlike an intrusion detection system, an intrusion prevention system prevents malicious events from occurring. It compares the bits of data with the signatures of previously known attacks continuously. There are several different attacks that can be prevented. Some of them are:

1. Denial of service attack
2. Virus attack
3. Worms attack
4. Distributed denial of service attack

An intrusion prevention software sits directly behind the firewall to analyze the traffic and to select the negative content. It is placed in the direct communication path between the source and the destination.

Therefore, any malicious entity will pass through the IPS before entering the system.

After the complete analysis of the traffic, it will take some automated actions such as:

1. Notify security administrator
2. Dropping the malicious content
3. Blocks the traffic from a particular source address
4. Resetting the security environment

What Methods Are Used For Intrusion Prevention?

To detect malicious activities, there are numbers of IPS detection methods used for finding exploits. Most popular of them are:

• Signature-Based Detection
• Statistical-Anomaly Based Detection

1. Signature-based detection:

In this detection technique, IPS compares the data packet with the signatures of known threats. When it finds any similarity with the previously identified threats, it will take action to block the attack.

The downside of this technique is that it can only prevent the threat that has been already identified and cannot prevent the attacks that are recently originated.

1. Statistical anomaly-based detection:

In this detection technique, the current network environment will be compared with an established baseline. If it finds any deviation from the normal behavior then it will take action against the attack.

After understanding about the IPS, let’s discuss its types in a detailed manner.

What Are The Different Types of IPS?

The IPS is categorized into four different types depending upon its functionalities.

1. Network-Based
2. Wireless
3. Network Behavior Analysis
4. Host-Based

• Network-based IPS:

Network-based Intrusion Prevention Software is specified to analyze network traffic to detect and prevent any threat related to the network. It reads the data packets over the entire network and takes relevant action based on its severity. Network IPS also reports to security administrators about real-time security insight of the network regardless of network growth.

• Network Behavior Analysis:

It scrutinizes the network traffic to find all the potential threats that produce unusual traffic behavior. It includes DOS attacks, malware, and policy violations.

• Host-Based IPS:

Host-based IPSs are used to protect endpoint services. It protects your system from malware and other malware threat. It inspects log files, file systems, and resources of the host. The advantage of Host-based IPS is that it can protect critical system resources, analyze operating system processes.

• Wireless IPS:

Wireless IPS software is a network security device that is used to analyse network protocol activities across the entire wireless network. It compares the MAC address of all wireless access points with the known access points and sends an alert to the security administrator in case of any deviation found.

Summing Up!!

Access to Data centers must be secured by using perimeter defense systems such as Physical access control, video surveillance, firewalls, multi-factor authentication, and intrusion detection systems. All of these measures have their importance, but IPS are the most accurate defense system to deal with external threats. Therefore, we have provided a guide that lets you know what is Intrusion Prevention System & Its Types along with a broad picture.