Cisco Secure IPS (formerly Firepower Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System, or NGIPS) is an intrusion detection response system that produces security data and enhances the analysis by InsightOps. The technology replaces the former Sourcefire 3D IPS. Cisco acquired Sourcefire in 2013.
IPS sensors are more suited for companies that do not have visibility into their network with third-party analyzing tools. Scenarios would be to place IPS sensors at the perimeter firewalls mainly. IPS sensors are less appropriate for companies that have third-party analyzing tools that will mitigate vulnerabilities and malicious traffic and activities already.
Cisco Secure IPS is required for every organization and it gives us all the advanced security features for more visibility and control on our incoming and outgoing network traffic. We can easy to configure and management is also very easy. You can deploy in the existing network very easily. The price is very low and performance is very high and it works very quickly on threats and takes the necessary action.
The option to deploy it as a virtual machine in a UCS-E inside a Cisco Router is something to consider a lot. It simplifies a lot the deployment in places where you need to optimize resources and keep things simple. It also saves some money on unnecessary hardware.
Having the most complete license, we can have in the same box IPS, inspection for malware and URL filtering. As Cisco uses Talos Intelligence network to mitigate and evaluate risks, having this complete set of security features turns the box into a powerful resource to protect our remote locations. Considering the hyper-connected business we have today, it's almost impossible to think that we can run a business without this kind of protection.
The integration between Firepower NGIPS and other products, like Cisco ISE and Splunk, is also a key feature for this solution. In both cases, you can integrate the product to have the best of both. As a security appliance, it's very important for us to have all the logs centralized in Splunk and this is done simply connecting FMC (Firepower Management Console) to the Splunk collector.
We didn't have any major issues that let us need support. Only, for this reason, I think Cisco Firepower deserves the rating. Even for small issues, the partner that helped us during the project could solve it quickly. There are also tons of documents and other online resources to help maintain, administer and support the product.
IPS sensors provides the necessary network visibility my company needs to satisfy its security appetite. By doing so, we have been able to stay compliant and up to date with today's network security requirements and procedures. We are able to be proactive with vulnerabilities and reactive to malicious traffic and intrusions in our day to day operations.
Cisco Secure IPS is our first product. We were not using any other tools before. We are very happy with the Cisco Secure IPS features and customer support