The ways of network intrusion and their detection and prevention

Network intrusion refers to any unauthorized or forcible activity on a digital network. Network intrusions often involve stealing valuable network resources and always jeopardize the security of networks and/or their data.

Intrusion detection and prevention are two broad terms describing application security practices used to easing attacks and block new threats.

The first is a reactive measure that identifies and mitigates ongoing attacks using an intrusion detection system. The system is able to weed out existing malware e.g.; Trojan, and detect social engineering (e.g., man in the middle, phishing) assaults that manipulate users into revealing sensitive information.

The second is a proactive security measure that uses an intrusion prevention system to preemptively block application attacks. This includes remote file inclusions that facilitate malware injections, and SQL injections used to access an enterprise’s databases.

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Intrusion Detection System (IDS)  is a detective device or software application that is designed to monitors and detect network for malicious activity or policy violations. Below are the 5 types of IDS;

• Network intrusion detection systems (NIDS): A system that analyzes incoming network traffic.

• Host-based intrusion detection systems (HIDS): monitor the incoming and outgoing packets from the device only and will alert the administrator if suspicious or malicious activity is detected.

• Application Protocol-based Intrusion Detection System (APIDS): Identifies the intrusions by monitoring and interpreting the communication on application-specific protocols

• Protocol-based Intrusion Detection System (PIDS): Comprises of a system or agent that resides at the front end of a server, controlling and interpreting the protocol between a user/device and the server.

• Hybrid Intrusion Detection System: It is made by the combination of two or more approaches to the intrusion detection system. The system host agent or system data is combined with network information to develop a complete view of the network system.

IDS solutions can help your organizations evaluate the internal user behavior as well as potential threats originating from the outside. IDS only detects ongoing attacks, not incoming assaults. To block these, an intrusion prevention system (IPS) is required.

Intrusion prevention system (IPS) is a network security and threat prevention tool. An IPS prevents attacks by dropping malicious packets, blocking offending IPs and alerting security personnel to potential threats. Intrusion prevention systems work by scanning all network traffic.

An IPS complements an IDS configuration by proactively inspecting a system’s incoming traffic to weed out malicious requests. A typical IPS configuration uses web application firewalls and traffic filtering solutions to secure applications

IPS is designed to prevent several threats including;

 Denial of Service (DoS) attack

 Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack

 Various types of exploits

 Worms and Viruses.

The IPS come in four primary types:

• Network-based: Protect your computer network

• Wireless: Protect wireless networks only

• Network behaviour: Examine network traffic

• Host-based: Come as installed software to protect a single computer.

While being effective at blocking known attack vectors, some IPS systems come with limitations. These are commonly caused by an overreliance on predefined rules, making them susceptible to false positives.

IDS and IPS are almost similar, but they're fairly different at a basic level. The IDS and IPS both are necessary because these devices employ technology, which analyses traffic flows to the protected resource to detect and prevent exploits or other vulnerability issues.

Organizations should choose the most reliable IDS / IPS approach that will pair well with their context, as well as interoperate with other elements of the total security infrastructure.

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