NGIPS Remains a Core Component of Mature Security Operations and Is Increasingly Relevant as Enterprises Look to Further Segment Networks
AUSTIN, Texas – January 15, 2019 – NSS Labs, Inc., a global leader and trusted source for independent, fact-based cybersecurity guidance, today announced that it is developing the next iteration of its Next Generation Intrusion Prevention Systems (NGIPS) Group Test with results expected to be released in 2019. As part of today’s announcement, the company is also issuing a call for industry engagement from both enterprises and NGIPS vendors to help shape and evolve the upcoming NGIPS Group Test and accompanying methodology.
NGIPS technology continues to play a critical role in addressing enterprise requirements for deep forensics and incident response capabilities to manage insider threats. These threats have been linked to many large-scale breaches and often bypass traditional NGFWs deployed at the perimeter. NGIPS are also deployed for traditional branch/campus deployments that combine NGFW and IPS capabilities and for policy control to help mitigate highly adaptable threats. In addition to supporting perimeter deployments, NGIPS are becoming even more important in supporting new use cases. Enterprises are looking to improve segmentation, operational agility, and time to mitigate through security orchestration and automation response (SOAR) and through security information and event management (SIEM), and these technologies are now placing new demands on NGIPS as they increasingly rely on intelligence and action from IPS systems.
In 2018, NSS Labs performed the industry’s most comprehensive group test of leading NGIPS products. Seven products from six market-leading vendors were examined for security effectiveness, performance, and total cost of ownership. Of the products that participated in the group test, two missed at least one evasion. Testing also revealed stability issues with certain product versions.
“Enterprises continue to rely on NGIPS because they are highly effective and easy to deploy without new network architectures and also because they can be tuned and complement the capabilities of NGFWs that are deployed at the perimeter,” said Jason Brvenik, Chief Technology Officer at NSS Labs. “NSS Labs is continuously evolving its group tests to keep pace with industry advancements. With new use cases for NGIPS, empirical data is critical to inform decision making. We encourage both enterprises and vendors to collaborate with us as we examine leading NGIPS products in the market.”
NSS Labs has a long history in testing enterprise-class security products. NSS Labs’ rigorous group tests offer independent analysis of the top security technologies used today by Global 2000 companies. The tests provide the industry’s most comprehensive review of security effectiveness, performance, and total cost of ownership. Enterprises rely on our tests for fact-based, empirical data that they can use to inform their decision making. Within the last 12 months, NSS Labs has released group test results for several categories of mature and evolving cybersecurity products.
As with all NSS Labs tests, there is no fee for participation, and the test methodology is available in the public domain to provide transparency and to help enterprises understand the factors behind test results.