An intrusion prevention system (IPS) helps protect your organization’s technology infrastructure and sensitive data from cyberattacks. This security software watches network traffic for signs of malicious activity, alerting team members when such incidents occur.
The IPS uses signature-based detection to compare network data with predefined attack patterns known as “signatures.” It can also employ anomaly-based detection to identify changes in network behavior over time.
Malware
Malware is software designed to attack or contaminate an electronic device. It can steal private information, gain unauthorized access to systems and networks, or even damage a device. Malware comes in a wide variety of forms. Some are self-replicating like viruses, while others require human action to spread. Others hide in the background and spy on your activities, like spyware and adware. Still others provide privileged access to an infected system, such as rootkits.
The days when teenage pranksters created malware are long gone, as cybercriminals develop threats to exploit their targets’ weaknesses. Smartphones, for example, are popular targets because they store a lot of personal and financial data that can be valuable to an attacker. They’re also constantly connected to the Internet through Wi-Fi or cellular data, allowing them to upload stolen data to a remote server.
So, what attacks are detected by an IPS? One of the critical functions of an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is to detect and prevent various types of cyber attacks, ensuring the security and integrity of the network.
Fortunately, an intrusion prevention system can detect malware. IPS can stop attacks from getting to devices and servers by blocking protocols that aren’t secure, denying access to sites that use insecure protocols, preventing the downloading of malicious content, and closing security holes that could be exploited by zero-day exploits (vulnerabilities that haven’t been disclosed and patched). IPS can also spot suspicious activity on a network, such as IP addresses used by compromised servers, identify the source of attacks, and shut down those attacks.
Ransomware
Cybercriminals hold your data hostage and demand payment to return it. Ransomware has become a popular tool in the kit of cybercriminals due to its effectiveness and profit potential. It may be downloaded as an attachment in spammed emails, from malicious pages through advertisements, or dropped by exploit kits onto vulnerable systems. Once an attack succeeds, it will spread quickly unless security appliances detect it and block the threat.
These newer types encrypt files, including database, web, office, video, image, script, and text. They also delete backup files to prevent the restoration of encrypted data. They often target organizations that haven’t taken steps to update software or follow best practices.
IPS can prevent ransomware by enforcing secure protocols and blocking traffic that uses insecure protocols, such as SSL or TLS. It can also detect and block zero-day exploits that attackers use to gain illicit network access. In addition, IPS can limit access to shared network drives and turn off file sharing to minimize the risk of ransomware spreading through an organization. It can also help identify and turn off rogue applications that run on a system. It can help organizations respond to a ransomware attack by notifying law enforcement and following data regulation protocols, such as GDPR’s “notification of personal data breach” requirement.
Crypto-Cracking
As the value of cryptocurrencies has risen, crypto-cracking tools have become increasingly popular with hackers. These tools are designed to guess passwords and crack encryption with the help of a database of character combinations (called dictionaries). Shorter passwords can be broken quickly and easily using cryptanalytic attacks, while longer ones require brute-force methods such as dictionary attacks.
Cybercriminals often take advantage of software vulnerabilities and applications used on endpoints such as smartphones, laptops, or desktops. An IPS detects these exploits by looking for patterns of activity that are not expected and can take a variety of actions when a threat is detected, including sending an alert to the user, logging for future analysis, resetting the connection, dropping the malicious packet, blocking subsequent traffic from the suspected IP address, or even erasing the infected files on the host computer.
An IPS can also protect against these threats by using stateful protocol analysis. This is a deeper inspection of the protocol content within each packet and can detect when a packet deviates from its normal state, which can indicate an attack. This type of detection can be more accurate than statistical anomaly detection because it is more aware of the normal state of the packet.
Phishing
Phishing involves an attacker masquerading as a trusted entity to trick a victim into clicking a link or downloading an attachment. This can result in a data breach, malware implantation, information systems intrusion, ransomware attacks, and other significant consequences. For businesses, this can include lost revenue and stealing sensitive customer banking or credit card data.
Many variations of the phishing attack include spear phishing, which uses research to target specific individuals or companies. Cybercriminals can gather details from social media or purchase them to personalize the phishing message to their target. This approach allows for more successful phishing campaigns. For example, cybercriminals impersonate a C-level executive to convince lower-level employees to transfer funds or reveal company secrets. This is called CEO fraud and is a significant component of business email compromise (BEC).
Other phishing attacks include vishing, which involves sending a malicious link via voice or text. Smishing and fishing use similar techniques but target mobile devices. Other phishing attacks use man-in-the-middle tactics to eavesdrop on a person’s correspondence and infect their devices with malware.
