Host Intrusion Prevention clients contain a set of IPS signature rules that determine whether
activity on the client computer is benign or malicious. When malicious activity is detected, alerts
known as events are sent to the ePO server and appear in the Host IPS tab under Reporting.
The protection level set for signatures in the IPS Protection policy determines which action a
client takes when an event occurs. Reactions include ignore, log, or prevent the activity.
Events from legitimate activity that are false positives can be overridden by creating an exception
to the signature rule or by qualifying applications as trusted. Clients in adaptive mode
automatically create exceptions, called
client rules. Administrators can manually create exceptions
at any time.
Monitoring events and client exception rules helps determine how to tune the deployment for
the most effective IPS protection.
Application protection rules
Application protection rules provide protection for defined and generated lists of processes
against buffer overflow by permitting or blocking user-level API hooking.
Buffer overflow protection is generic for Host Intrusion Prevention and is applicable to any
process that is hooked. The IPS policy contains a default list of application protection rules for
Windows platforms. This list is updated, as needed, whenever you install a content update. You
can add network facing and service-based applications to this list automatically if you have
enabled the "Automatically include network-facing and service based applications" option in the
IPS Options policy.
Events
IPS events are generated when a client reacts to a triggered signature.
Events are logged in the Events tab of the Host IPS tab under Reporting. Administrators can
view and monitor these events to analyze system rule violations. They can then adjust event
reactions or create exceptions or trusted application rules to reduce the number of events and
fine-tune the protection settings.
NOTE:
The Host Intrusion Prevention client aggregates events so not all events are sent to the
ePO server. This prevents numerous events that happen within 20 seconds of each other from
being repeatedly sent to the server. If an event reoccurs after 20 seconds, an additional event
is reported. Administrators can view all events on the Host IPS tab under Reporting in the ePO
console or on the client system.
Enable IPS protection
The IPS Options policy determines how IPS protection is applied. It offers options for Windows
and non-Windows platforms.
For all platforms
These options are available for clients on all platforms:
• Host IPS enabled — Select to turn on IPS protection through the enforcement of host IPS
rules.
NOTE:
This control is also available directly on the client.
Configuring IPS Policies
Enable IPS protection
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McAfee Host Intrusion Prevention 8.0 Product Guide for ePolicy Orchestrator 4.5