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 [Image]              Alarming News For Hackers

        Rutrell Yasin:
        Just how effective are intrusion detection systems at
        locking hackers out of corporate networks? Early
        incidents suggest they are quite effective.

        Consider the case of a large financial services company
        that recently installed a beta version of CyberCop, one
        of the new breed of high-tech burglar alarms from
        Network Associates. Shortly after installing two sensor
        probes and a server-one sensor for the internal
        network, the other on the Internet link-security
        operators began to notice suspicious activity. "There
        were several incidents of DNS scans against us," said a
        security administrator at the company who requested
        anonymity. This was a clear sign that someone was
        trying to gain access to the network.

        A few days before Christmas, CyberCop picked up a
        TCP/IP hijacking attempt. Employees in the bank's
        mortgage finance group routinely access the Web site of
        a business partner. Someone from the partner's site
        attempted to come back into the bank's network using IP
        addressing information culled from IP sessions
        originating at the bank. Immediately, CyberCop blocked
        the site and the Webmaster at the business partner was
        contacted. Three hours later, however, "our firewall
        went into distress and we thought it was a hardware
        issue, like a network card failing."

        About five to 10 minutes later, the firewall was hit
        with a denial-of-service attack. CyberCop found this
        attack was coming from a different Web site than the
        one attempting to hijack TCP/IP sessions, which
        prompted operators to take action to block the site.
        CyberCop ships at the end of the month. It costs $8,995
        per sensor.

        Other companies fielding high-tech burglar alarms
        include Axent Technologies, Internet Security Systems,
        Intrusion Detection Inc., Trusted Information Systems
        and the WheelGroup.

        Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media Inc.

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