Finally, a voice of reason

I can always count on Rothman to bring a little sanity to the security world.  In todays daily incite, Mike talks about the ICSA Labs IPS certification testing and their misleading marketing. ICSA labs mentioned that only 3 products passed their most recent certification on IPS.  What their spinmiester marketing left out, was that was pretty much all they tested.  Most vendors didn't see much value in writing ICSA Labs a check for yet another gold star to pin on.  I have already written about bogus awards for hire and lab certifications are usually not much better. Most in the IPS arena are using NSS for certifying performance.

The real reason I write though, is more about Tipping Points press release around the ICSA labs certification.  As Mike points out, other than a few players in a small niche market, who really gives a flying you know what about their IPS box being bigger than yours.  With the power of todays boxes and the way they are used by customers, size really doesn't matter (at least in regard to IPS).  I always wonder about the people who say they need multi-gig capability in their IPS, so they can monitor their 10/100 network segment.  Is there some size compensation going on there? 

Anyway, I think this is being borne out in the market.  Our freeware IPS, Strata Guard Free continues to rack up impressive download numbers and great user experience, even though it is rate limited to 5 mbps.