IPS as a Service

This is the most legitimate concern: a device sitting inline will also cut legitimate traffic on a false positive. We manage this risk with a three-stage rollout. For the first 2-4 weeks the device runs in IDS mode (detection only) and a pattern profile specific to your traffic is built; we verify that your ERP integrations, backup traffic and custom protocols do not conflict with the signatures. In the second stage, only high-confidence signatures are moved to blocking mode. In the third stage the scope is widened; a bypass list is defined for critical systems, and a fail-open hardware module passes traffic through uninterrupted if the device fails. In deployments we run with this discipline, false blocks that affect production traffic are the exception.

Yes, through two mechanisms. The first is TLS inspection: according to your organization's policy, selected traffic is decrypted on the IPS, inspected and re-encrypted; sensitive categories such as banking and healthcare can be exempted. The second is analysis that works without decryption: JA3/JA3S fingerprints, certificate anomalies, and traffic volume and timing patterns give away C2 communication and data exfiltration even in an encrypted flow. In practice we combine the two: as a rule, TLS inspection on your server-side traffic and fingerprint analysis on client traffic. This way visibility is preserved without violating privacy policies.