What Is Intrusion Detection?

An intrusion detection system (IDS) is an additional protection measure to firewalls, virus scanners, and encryption that helps ward off computer intrusions. IDS systems can be software and hardware devices used to detect an attack. Attacks can take many forms, as we have discussed. You can be attacked through applications such as Netscape, Internet Explorer, Eudora, or Microsoft Outlook. You can be attacked via the operating system, regardless of whether it is Unix-, Windows-, or Mac-based. You also can be attacked via the network through denial-of-service (DoS) attacks or attacks against protocols.

IDS products are used to monitor your connection to try to determine whether someone is launching an attack against ...

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