Is something rotten at TippingPoint?

Would you buy an IPS if its chances of detecting and stopping an attack were less than 50/50?  Probably not.  But that evidently is exactly the case with TippingPoint IPS according to the latest test results from NSS Labs. In this interview in TechWorld, Rick Moy, NSS President said that though it won the gold award 5 years ago, this latest round of tests showed a major slippage in coverage compared to other leading IPS providers.

What could it be that resulted in this lackluster result?  Could the fact that 3Com has exerted a stronger influence as a corporate parent led to a brain drain? Has TippingPoint concentrated too much on trying to make their NAC product competitive or integrate into 3Com switches. Maybe it is the H3C stuff in China. Frankly I don’t have any inside information. What I do know is that this could be a major crack in the armor of a leading IPS manufacturer. How much weight this is given and what the fall out will be remains to be seen, but usually where there is smoke there is fire.

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