It was the vendor that sold them the badging system that did it because if there was ever a maintenance problem the vendor didn't want to send someone out on-site. They wanted to be able to dial-up and fix the problem. The increasing number of individuals and organisations that require access to the corporate network means that a firewall no longer provides sufficient protection. As a result, organisations are increasingly looking to augment their traditional methods of computer security with intrusion detection software, applications that warn IT security managers that their systems might be under threat - at the very moment an attack is occurring. Conceptually, says Frank Prince, an analyst at Forrester Research, the idea is not new.
Consultants typically recommend a dual approach.
Only by installing both types of intrusion detection tools, they advise, can organisations truly protect themselves. This is because certain attacks can defy network traffic analysis, while system logs can be tampered with. Furthermore, intrusion detection technology is still far from mature and, unlike many other applications, intrusion detection systems cannot be satisfactorily run 'out of the box'. This is because there is always a long process of painstaking fine-tuning involved, a process that can take months. Without proper tuning, the software will simply send out too many 'false positives'.