Dropped Packets

Would an IDS help with the Webcomic War?  An Intrusion Detection System could help identify overzealous participants in the Webcomic War.  (Dropped Packets has talked about IDS in the past, see Reg Asks What Is An IDS).  An IDS would not help win the Webcomic War.  An IDS however, would definitely help you respond to hackers on your network.  How hard is it to install an IDS?

The Webcomic War is a competition held by Webcomic Planet to help promote web comics on the Internet.  Dropped Packets is participating in the competition to spread subversively the “Network Defense” message.  The competition works by shamelessly promoting your web comic across the Internet.  Each promotion gives you points, which ultimately will be used in a “War” against other sites.  Hacking an opponent’s site would certainly distract them.

An overzealous participant could hack your web comic site and an IDS would be handy in this fictional scenario.  The IDS would be configured to recognize attacks against WordPress, Drupal, or custom software hosting the web comics.  The IDS would monitor traffic to the site and generate alerts.  Seeing an alert, you could block the offending host at the router.  Alternatively, you could find out who it was and drop a bomb on them.

Installing an IDS is not terribly difficult.  There are a few ways to easily try-out an IDS too.  Snort is a terrific open source IDS.  A lot of information may be found on its website.  There is plenty of documentation on how to install, configure, and use the system.  However, if you want to try out the system, use the Network Security Toolkit.  It is a CD with its own operating system.  You just slide it into your CDROM drive reboot and you can monitor your network.  Conversely, you could always contact our sponsor, Lomin Security for support.

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