How an IDS Works
An IDS can either be deployed as a:
- Network-based solution
- Host-based solution
In both deployment locations, it monitors network traffic and other malicious activity to identify potential intrusions and other threats to the monitored network or device. An IDS can use a couple of different means of identifying potential threats, including:
- Signature-Based: Signature-based detection mechanisms use unique identifiers to look for known threats. For example, an IDS may have a library of malware hashes that it uses to identify known malware attempting to infiltrate the protected system.
- Anomaly-Based: Anomaly-based detection depends on building a model of normal behavior within the network or protected device. It then looks for any deviations from this norm that could indicate a cyberattack or other incident.
The Importance of IDS
An IDS is an important component of a corporate cybersecurity architecture because it can identify and alert the SOC about threats that might otherwise be missed. While next-generation and AI-powered firewalls incorporate IDS capabilities, traditional firewalls do not.
The integration of IDS within an enterprise firewall provides more robust protection against threats such as:
7 Most Common Challenges of IDS
An IDS can be a valuable component of a corporate security architecture. But, organizations commonly face challenges when using an IDS, including the following:
- Incorrect Detections: IDS can use a combination of signature and anomaly detection mechanisms, and both can make mistakes if the firewall design isn’t hardened. Signature detection is more prone to false negatives when a new malware variant doesn’t have a signature in its database. Anomaly detection can have false positives if a benign anomaly is mistakenly classified as a potential threat.
- Alert Volumes: An inferior IDS design often generates large volumes of alerts that security personnel need to search through and triage. Security teams can easily become overwhelmed, and, if many alerts are false positives, they may start ignoring them, resulting in missed intrusions.
- Alert Investigation: IDS alerts often provide basic information about a security incident but may lack important context. As a result, security personnel may invest significant time and effort investigating and understanding an alert before triggering incident response or dismissing it as a false positive.
- No Threat Prevention: An IDS is designed to identify a potential threat and alert security teams about it. It does nothing to actually prevent threats, leaving a window to attack the organization before manual response operations are triggered. If the alert is missed or ignored, the security team may not even respond to the incident.
- Alert Fatigue: IDS is only designed to alert organizations. By lacking the automated response of an integrated IDS+IPS (Intrusion Prevention Service), security teams are burdened with higher workloads. And in many cases, these teams will invariably ignore or mute alerts based on being overloaded with too much ‘data’ to investigate.
- Configuration and Maintenance: To properly identify potential security risks, an IDS must be properly deployed, configured, and maintained. This requires specialized expertise and resources that might otherwise be used elsewhere.
- Resource Requirements: An IDS may consume significant resources to identify threats, especially if it has a large signature dictionary or advanced anomaly detection algorithms. These could degrade system performance or result in poor performance if an IDS is deployed in-line. Additionally, signature libraries must be frequently updated to identify the latest threats.
Intrusion Detection System (IDS) vs. Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)
An intrusion prevention system (IPS) has the same capabilities as an IDS but doesn’t stop with generating an alert. Instead, it actually blocks the threats that an IDS would only generate an alert for.
This prevention has its benefits and downsides. On the positive side, an IPS can prevent an attack from reaching an organization’s systems, eliminating the threat to the business. However, a false positive detection could result in it blocking legitimate traffic, negatively impacting productivity and the user experience caused by needing to open a resolution ticket
When deciding between an IDS and an IPS, organizations should consider these tradeoffs between security and usability. An IPS offers better protection, while an IDS eliminates usability impacts. Or, a company can choose an IPS with a minimal false positive rate to get the best of both worlds.
Selecting an IDS/IPS Solution with Check Point
Organizations can deploy an IDS/IPS as a standalone security solution. However, these capabilities are commonly built into many modern cybersecurity solutions, such as firewalls (NGFWs) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). An integrated security solution often offers improved efficiency and performance over standalone tools and is easier for a security team to configure, manage, and operate.
Check Point Quantum Force security gateways and CloudGuard Network offer comprehensive threat prevention including IPS, encrypted (HTTPS) traffic inspection, firewalling, layer 1-7 protection, etc. .
Check Point’s Harmony SASE offers IPS, NGFW, and a range of other security capabilities in a single, cloud-based solution. To learn more about how SASE and IDS/IPS can help your organization, feel free to sign up for a free Harmony SASE demo.
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