RE: Low cost HID based IDS system

[Paul Schmehl <pauls () utdallas edu>]

I'm a big believer in open source.  I use snort, nessus, nmap, etc. daily. 
I run snort on FreeBSD.  I'm writing to you on a RedHat box.  I don't think 
that I missed your point.  I was trying to point out to you that the cost 
of a service isn't *just* the equipment or software you have to provide. 
You need to think about that carefully, or you will burn yourself out 
trying to help your customers.

As one who monitors our network I can tell you that while snort is free, 
installing it, configuring it, keeping it up to date and *monitoring it* is 
not.  It's nice to have the technology in place, but I *do* have to sleep 
from time to time, and when I'm sleeping the bad guys are not.

You're absolutely right that something is better than nothing.  I'm just 
trying to warn you to not get your customers' hopes up too high.  Unless 
you can monitor 24/7/365 you *will* miss attacks.  They need to know that. 
They need to understand that the *best* model is one where they get 
24/7/365 coverage.  What you're thinking about offering them is *useful*, 
but it needs to be taken in context.

I am *not* saying that what you're thinking about doing is a bad idea.  I 
*am* saying that you need to be realistic regarding your and your 
customers' expectations and you need to think about how much putting this 
system together will cost you.  I'm sure you don't consider your time as 
free.  How much are you willing to "spend" to put together a system?  And 
how long will it take you to recover that cost?

--On Monday, May 19, 2003 10:21:01 AM +1000 Zach Forsyth 
<Zach.Forsyth () kiandra com> wrote:

> Paul,
>
> You seemed to of missed the point a little.
> Why do people bother developing snort when there are so many other
> commercial IDS's out there, it's free so therefore it can't be any good.
> Why do people bother with Nessus
> Why do people bother with <insert free/cheap/open source solutions here>

Paul Schmehl (pauls () utdallas edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
The University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu

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