Re: [logs] Sentry/Counterpane how is it working ?

From: Sweth Chandramouli (loganalysisat_private)
Date: Tue Mar 12 2002 - 13:00:00 PST

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    On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 02:34:51PM +0100, Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote:
    > Dear All, 
    > 
    > We have look around http://www.counterpane.com/sentry.html. And we some 
    > question of how it is working ?
    [snip]
    > Is there some user of the sentry software/appliance (or maybe Tina?)
    > in this list? Any feedback ?
    	I suspect that Tina would rather others respond so that
    it doesn't seem like she was abusing her role as moderator to spam the
    group with marketing.  Since I know something about the Sentry as well
    (I worked for Counterpane very briefly about a year ago), I'll throw in
    my two cents.  (Insert dislaimers about opinions being mine and nobody
    elses, etc., etc.)
    
    > - If we clearly understand this is only network monitoring sniffing ? 
    	At least when I was there, there was no sniffing going on;
    the sentry was essentially a log aggregator that gathered information from
    servers, network devices, IDSes, etc., parsed them and did some
    intelligent preprocessing, and then passed the relevant logs entries on
    to the Counterpane SOC (via an encrypted channel) for further analysis by
    humans and other software.
    	That conflicts with what it says at:
    >   (check out Question 7 : http://www.counterpane.com/questions.html)
    	, however, now that I look at that link:
    "Counterpane's business model works because network monitoring is
    fundamentally better than device monitoring" _does_ imply pretty
    strongly that they don't gather data from routers, switches, servers,
    etc.  Either that piece of marketing was written by someone who is
    using "device monitoring" to mean something different (I do notice that
    earlier in the same section they use the phrase "device monitoring/
    management", so perhaps they are just trying to emphasize that they
    only monitor things--they aren't like some companies whose business
    model was to actually go in and manage devices as part of their security
    services), or things have changed greatly.
    
    >  - How the device handles encrypted connection (like SSL/TLS, SSH...) ?
    >  - Maybe you can store private key on the sentry box ? (maybe quite dangerous
    	I'm not sure I understand these questions; could you
    clarify them?
    
    > - So with this type of system where can you get the system log for
    > example ? (Event log and audit log from WIN32 ? Specific application
    > log ?)
    	Again, as of last year, all of this info would be
    redirected to the sentries just like syslog info would be.
    
    > - Another question : Is it possible to get the software of sentry ?
    > Or having a technical overview of the software ?
    	There's a whole lot of proprietary stuff on those boxes
    that I don't think they'd want to give away to competitors. :)  I'm
    sure if you had specific questions, though, their sales folks could
    get you the appropriate info.
    
    	-- Sweth.
    
    -- 
    Sweth Chandramouli ; <svcat_private>
    President, Idiopathic Systems Consulting
    
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