Signs You Might Be Ready for an IDS Upgrade

by Bricata on April 22, 2020

When was the last time you assessed your Intrusion Detection System (IDS)? These solutions remain vitally important today, but as threats and the threat landscape continue to evolve, so does IDS. In fact, according to a survey from CRITICALSTART, Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts struggle with an overwhelming number of alerts every day, leading to significant alert fatigue and employee turnover. Many legacy IDS solutions are ‘alert cannons’ with a high volume of false positives that lack multi-threat detection capabilities, are difficult to maintain, and lack the visibility needed to protect networks.

Fortunately, there are new, comprehensive network IDS solutions that help SOC analysts identify threats more quickly and efficiently. When evaluating the efficacy of your IDS solution, here are some key things to consider if it might be time to upgrade your system:

Comprehensive Functionality

Modern IDS platforms are now available that give SOC analysts everything they need to combat the latest network threats in a single integrated platform. Make sure your next network IDS delivers functionality in these four key areas:

Multiple Threat Detection Methods: Comprehensive threat detection requires inspecting network traffic from a wide variety of different perspectives. These methods should include deep packet inspection (signature-based) detection using tools like Suricata, behavioral anomaly-based (stateful) detection using tools like Zeek, and AI-based file analysis. Finally, threat detection solutions should also hash files that come onto the network and compare them against a feed of known bad hashes to quickly identify malicious files.
Network Visibility: Getting comprehensive network visibility dramatically improves security by revealing the ground truth of everything happening on your network. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to achieve. Obtaining network visibility requires observing and/or capturing network traffic everywhere it flows and converting it into metadata that provides human-understandable insight into what is actually happening on your network, as well as strategically saving full packet captures for detailed analysis.
Threat Hunting: An effective threat hunting capability should include a threat hunting data repository that is self-configuring, self-populating, and self-managing, as well as goal-oriented system workflows and analysis and visualization capabilities. A modern IDS should offer many of these features.
Post-Detection Response: When a real threat is discovered on a network, you need to respond quickly. A good IDS solution should speed time-to-response through prioritized alerting, providing inputs to other security tools to remediate detected threats, and giving continuous improvement feedback.

When it comes to network IDS, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts when properly integrated. But finding fully-integrated IDS solutions that combine a variety of powerful capabilities into a single system with minimal management and coordination on your part can be a real challenge.

Consider these key questions:

Sponsorships Available

Does your solution have centralized management that reduces or eliminates manual tasks?
Does your solution deliver outcome-driven workflows?
Does it include tight technology integrations, such as the ability to alert a SOAR or EDR tool from the IDS, or the ability to feed rich network metadata into a threat hunting platform?

Rapid Deployment and Centralized Management

An IDS solution should be easy to deploy and manage, no matter if it is going on-premise, in the cloud, or into a hybrid environment. If your existing solution makes you waste large amounts of time manually updating disparate sensors or hardware, pushing out patches, or updating threat signatures and libraries, it’s time to find a new IDS platform that automates these ongoing tasks.

For example, Bricata’s solution can be easily and quickly deployed; you simply place the all-in-one sensor – integrated with technologies like Zeek and Suricata – onto your network wherever you need visibility and protection. Bricata sensors can be easily managed through a Central Management Console. Networks and security are complex but deploying and maintaining a new network IDS doesn’t have to be.

As threats continue to evolve and networks get more complex, protecting them can get more difficult if your IDS solution isn’t keeping up. These are the key things you need to consider when evaluating existing or new IDS solutions. If your current setup can’t deliver exceptional network protection with easy deployment, management, and integration – it’s time to find a network IDS that can.

Learn more about the Bricata Solution, and how it provides comprehensive threat detection, rapid deployment, and the low time-to-value you need to keep your organization secure here.

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