Network based IPS reduce cost: Report

NEW DELHI: McAfee Inc. today announced new data outlining how implementing network-based Intrusion Prevention Solutions (IPS) can drastically reduce the costs associated with security downtime.

The report entitled, "Reducing Downtime Costs with Network-Based IPS" written by Infonetics Research, looks at revenue and employee productivity losses due to DoS (Denial of Service) attacks and malware affecting clients, servers, and the network.

Businesses of all sizes are faced with the challenge of securing their network from threats, while keeping the network up and running. The report found that total security downtime costs for large organizations surpasses $30M and up to 2.2 percent of annual revenue. For small organizations the cost was just over $30K (0.4 percent of revenue), with medium organizations topping $225K (0.5 percent of revenue).

The report data also showed that organizations that have not yet deployed network-based IPS will see roughly the following gains when moving to implement network-wide network based IPS:

• DOS attacks: 65% reduction in downtime hours
• Server malware: 50% reduction in downtime hours
• Client malware: 40% reduction in downtime hours

Network-based IPS appliances enable enterprises, service providers, and small-medium businesses to reduce business risk by proactively protecting clients, servers, and network infrastructure from attacks of all types, including DoS/DDoS attacks, malware, worms, Trojans, and application specific threats. They are in-line devices, meaning that traffic is flowing through them in real-time. This allows the IPS device to block attacks before they reach their intended targets, while ensuring mission-critical applications are protected and performing without interruption.

"As a dedicated security vendor, McAfee has been delivering solutions for years to customers who understand that strong network security measures help reduce downtime," said Vimal Solanki, senior director of product marketing at McAfee.

He added "Infonetics' new report proves valuable to those organizations that have not yet deployed proactive network IPS by quantifying and justifying the ROI of having a secure network and system infrastructure."

As a companion to the research, Infonetics also provides a Security Downtime Cost Analyzer which quantifies the total downtime cost related to security threats and attacks, and shows the reduction in downtime cost after network-wide IPS is deployed.

CIOL Bureau