NSS Labs conducted a test of multiple IPS solutions from 7 well-known vendors in Q4, 2009. Their full report is available for purchase here (if you are interested in a copy of the full report, let us know as we’ve still got a limited number to give away and we’ve also negotiated a special deal for “friends of Endace”).

The NSS testing revealed issues with IPS performance that tally with our experience in the field, and which we felt are important for people to know about. So, with agreement from NSS, we’ve just released a graph (anonymised) from the NSS IPS testing. This showed that, even with tuned rule-sets, the average block-rate performance of the IPS solutions tested was just 57%.