Juniper's IDP 4.0 Fights VoIP, Database Attacks

Juniper Networks Monday rolled out upgrades to its intrusion detection/ prevention and security management software that give administrators better visibility into the network and more control over applications.

In addition to the ability to identify and block threats to the network, Juniper's Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) 4.0 analyzes traffic to determine what applications are being used and can block potential threats from non-business-critical applications such as peer-to-peer and instant messaging, said Sanjay Beri, director of product management at Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Juniper.

Juniper's IDP 4.0 includes new protocol anomaly engines that provide application control and protection for VoIP and cellular data networks, as well as an anomaly engine that identifies potential database attacks, according to Beri.

A feature called Application Intelligent QoS lets administrators set levels of priority for all applications on a network, and passes intelligence and application knowledge from Layer 7 to a router for bandwidth enforcement, Beri said. "This assures availability of network bandwidth for business-critical applications," he said.

Juniper's new Netscreen Security Manager (NSM) 2006.1 platform adds support for IDP appliances to its existing firewall management capability, said Mike Jacobsen, senior product line manager for network and security anagement at Juniper. The software is flexible and can be customized to allow for different levels of IDP administration as well as regional access, he added.Having a unified management interface for firewalls and IDP that aggregates events for both devices is a key feature, said Patrick Foxhoven, CIO of Centracomm, a Findlay, Ohio-based solution provider. Centracomm has a managed IDP offering and participated in beta testing of the IDP 4.0 release.

Foxhaven is seeing growing customer interest in solutions capable of detecting VoIP-based attacks. "We've been seeing a proliferation of VoIP-based attacks and it's only going to increase. Being able to look for and [identify] these attacks is critical to protecting the network," said Foxhaven.

The solution can look for VoIP-based attacks all the way through Layer 7, and protocol detection updates can be added without having to reboot the system, which enables companies to avoid downtime, added Foxhaven.

Juniper's IDP 4.0 and NSM 2006.1 products are available now. The IDP 4.0 and NSM 2006.1 software is available for download for existing Juniper IDP appliance and NSM customers. The IDP appliance, priced starting at $9,000, includes a five-device license of NSM 2006.1.