I & M Networks

Lafayette, Ind. 2010 Private CEO Matt Jonkman, also president of the Open Information Security Foundation (OISF) Suricata, the IDS engine develope

Intrusion detection is a must-have in any layered network defense, and Emerging Threats Pro is weaving its way into the fabric of open source intrusion detection software, with the company's CEO Matt Jonkman as the driving force.The IDS is based on the open source Suricata engine. The open source ruleset that goes along with Suricata comes from the Emerging Threats project. That is different from Emerging Threats Pro, which is a commercial enterprise set up to apply quality assurance to the Emerging Threats ruleset so it is more likely to find its way into commercial products. Jonkman says an open source community alone could not afford the equipment needed to do top-notch QA.That sounds a lot like the relationship between the Snort IDS engine and Sourcefire, and it is. But Emerging Threats Pro touts its multi-threading support that effectively boosts the potential line speed of IDSs that use it. And the Emerging Threats rules are compatible with the Snort IDS engine, so they can be used to augment Snort as well as other IDS rulesets that incorporate Snort.The company has a number of partners including Bridgeway Security, Critical Intelligence, Digital Pathways, Kaspersky Labs and Nitro Security, among others, which use Emerging Threats in various ways. Kaspersky, for instance, partners with Emerging Threats Pro to help expand its ruleset based on new malware it detects in its labs. It also uses the ruleset for its internal research.