DHHS Selects HP TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) for Network Security

July 16, 2010

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has selected the HP TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) platform to protect its network from viruses, malware and other security attacks.

As a large federal government agency, DHHS processes a significant volume of network traffic every day. In addition, each agency under DHHS has different mission profiles and specific security requirements. This large-scale, highly complex environment required DHHS to take a very deliberate approach to the selection and acquisition of an IPS technology platform.

The goal for DHHS was to find a high-performance security solution that accurately met government requirements while being sufficiently flexible and comprehensive to work with each of its agencies.

DHHS reviewed several intrusion detection systems and IPS solutions offered by multiple vendors. After months of research, DDHS selected the HP TippingPoint IPS platform for its ability to filter network traffic based on specific characteristics. Specifically, the HP TippingPoint IPS can inspect network traffic against signatures – or characteristics – for known attacks.

Equally important to DHHS, the HP TippingPoint IPS goes beyond signatures to provide vulnerability-specific filters. A vulnerability filter examines where a particular application is susceptible to compromise, and then blocks all attacks from exploiting those weaknesses.

The HP TippingPoint IPS is a purpose-built hardware appliance powered by security intelligence from HP TippingPoint’s Digital Vaccine Labs (DVLabs). DVLabs is a research organization within HP that analyzes security vulnerabilities and develops “filters” that block traffic from accessing weak points in an application or system. These filters are automatically deployed twice a week to customer IPS units to keep protection up to date against the latest attacks.