What are the benefits and drawbacks of using host-based intrusion detection systems?

Host-based intrusion detection systems (HIDS) Benefits of using HIDS: Enhanced security: Monitors system activities and file integrity, real-time alerts for suspicious behavior. This helps in identifying both external and internal threats, allowing immediate response and mitigation. Insider threat detection: Detects unusual behavior by employees, preventing internal breaches and protecting sensitive data. Drawbacks of using HIDS: Limited scope: Focuses on a single host, and may not detect attacks targeting other hosts or network-based threats. Resource consumption: Continuous monitoring and analysis by HIDS can consume system resources, affecting overall performance. False positives: HIDS may generate alerts for legitimate activities.

Host-Based Intrusion Detection Systems (HIDS) offer granular visibility into specific hosts, aiding in insider threat detection with low false positives. Customizable to host configurations, they excel at monitoring internal activities. However, HIDS has drawbacks: limited network scope, resource intensity impacting host performance, incomplete network visibility, and the complexity of managing alerts. To address these, organizations often integrate HIDS with network-based solutions for a comprehensive security approach.

Host based intrusion detection systems can evaluate configuration options that aren't visible from a network-based scanner. Examples include identification of weak local passwords, excessively permissive sudo permissions, and disabled security settings such as SELinux or AppArmor. Host based agents can also upload log files to a central location or SIEM for inspection and analysis. Additionally, a HIDS system can identify an attack through suspicious behavior that a NIDS cannot see. By correlating attacks with both a NIDS and HIDS, a security analyst can get a more comprehensive picture of a security incident, eliminate false positives, and develop a stronger situationl awareness of an organization's security posture.

Complexity: HIDS can be complex to deploy and manage, especially in large organizations with various systems. Performance: HIDS can consume a significant amount of system resources, which can impact the performance of the host machine. False positives: HIDS can generate false positives, which can be time-consuming to investigate and can lead to security fatigue. Evasion: Attackers can use various techniques to evade HIDS detection. Limited visibility: HIDS only has visibility into the activity on the host machine and cannot detect attacks from other network systems. Agent-based HIDS: Agent-based HIDS can be more difficult to deploy and manage than agentless HIDS.

The benefits are cost of infrastructure improvements, maintenance, and management are to the hosting company. 2. Security vulnerabilities and Technical Problems are to the company hosting, IT specialists also are responsible to ensure that all is well taken care of and it is the hosting company’s responsibility. The challenge is that internet connection issues, such the speed, power cuts or blackouts if no power backup the systems is down, and everything technical is in the hands of the hosting company, in house technicians have limited hands on, even if they do know what to do they are not in control.

HIDS allows quick detection and response of potential security incidents. This is good because it facilitates a timely response, helping companies reduce the impact of security breaches and incidents.

?? Supports forensic analysis by maintaining detailed logs and records, assisting in understanding the timeline and nature of security incidents

Main benefits of host-based solutions is that they can inspect encrypted data as it passes over the network, which makes it hard for network-based solutions to inspect traffic. File Integrity monitoring which provides an audit trail to track if essential files have been modified or accessed. HIDS can monitor specific activities, which provide more detail than network-based systems. Lower barrier entry than NIDS makes them more cost-effective for small businesses. Also, you don’t need extra hardware, which saves on management and maintenance costs.

When properly configured, HIDS can alert analysts on malware, spyware, etc. on workstations and servers. This could be alerted via the console, email, SMS, pager (ugh) or an app.

In my experience HIDS primarily focus on the host on which they are installed on, providing limited visibility into network-wide activities and traffic. They may miss attacks that occur outside the scope of the monitored host. That's what Ive observed

HIDS works by collecting data from a variety of sources, such as system logs, process information, and network traffic. This data is then analyzed for signs of suspicious activity. HIDS can use a variety of techniques to detect suspicious activity, including: Signature-based detection: This technique compares the collected data to a database of known attack signatures. If a match is found, the HIDS generates an alert. Anomaly-based detection: This technique analyzes the collected data for patterns that deviate from the normal behaviour of the system. If a pattern is detected, the HIDS generates an alert. Heuristic-based detection: This technique uses a combination of signature-based and anomaly-based detection techniques.

In my experience, Host based IDSs are harder to manage, as information must be configured and managed for every host. The information sources for host based IDSs reside on the host targeted by attacks, the IDSs may be attacked and disabled as part of the attack. HIDS are not well suited for detecting network scans or other such surveillance that targets an entire network. HIDS can be disabled by certain denial-of- service attacks.

If not properly tuned, HIDS can cause significant false positives. The tuning process may take time based on system complexity, familiarity with "what is normal" or experience of the analyst.

Most importantly drawbacks which one must consider while Choosing a HIDS are: 1) HIDS is resource intensive on the host 2) Lack of visibility of external threat and signature based (in some HIDS) limitations 3) Dependency on log availability 4) Management overhead

Ideally, organizations would leverage HIDS and other IDS/IPS systems on the network to corroborate the activity they are seeing. As stated before, HIDS can be tampered with, and for that reason, you never know when this rich data source could be lying to you. In a perfect situation, you could leverage the tamper-resistance of NIDS and the richness of data HIDS provides to identify and address true threats. Like in health care, when you get a second opinion, multiple sources increase your confidence in the data.

In my humble experience, i find that HIDS that is fine tuned towards how the business and its processes works. And even down to its culture and inter host communications is highly critical. Of cos today we are looking at tools with increasingly more capabilities to self-learn, integrated with AI to learn the environment. On top of prioritising HIDS to be deployed to mission critical systems, it is of paramount importance to integrate this soundly with host EDR, and DLP and PAM and monitored on the SIEM to have a holistic security detection posture. Of cos, this may be a luxury to some businesses, then it boils back down to prioritising and cherry picking security tools more relevant to the business.

Host-based intrusion detection systems (HIDS) are a great way to monitor your systems for malicious activity. However, there are some best practices that you should follow to get the most out of your HIDS. Here are some of the best practices for using HIDS: Deploy HIDS on all high-value systems. This includes servers, workstations, and network devices. Keep your HIDS signatures up to date. This will help to ensure that your HIDS can detect the latest threats. Configure your HIDS to generate alerts for important events. This will help you to be alerted to potential security incidents. Investigate all HIDS alerts. Even if an alert is a false positive, it is important to investigate it to rule out the possibility of a real attack.

Select a HIDS solution that aligns with your organization's needs and requirements. Consider factors such as scalability, ease of integration, and support for your operating systems. Continuous Monitoring: Enable continuous monitoring to detect any unusual or suspicious activity in real-time. Regularly review logs and alerts to identify potential security incidents promptly.

HIDS s?o ótimos para monitorar a seguran?a dos hosts, mas n?o conseguem proteger ativos como roteadores, switchs, VOIP e outros semelhantes, o ideal é associar o HIDS com um IPS na rede, observando a borda e o tráfego interno da rede.

HIDS can provide granular visibility into host activity, including encrypted traffic. However, they can consume system resources, be difficult to manage, and be disabled by attackers.