The Internet has and will continue to revolutionize the way business is conducted. Unfortunately, there is a dark side to the use of the Internet. The many advantages, such as cost, openness and flexibility of this vast computer network are heavily impacted by security risks. It is a daily occurrence to read about another malicious hacker who has defaced a web site, gained unauthorized access to a large corporations information resources, or shut down an Ecommerce site via a distributed denial of service attack. However, I believe a greater threat is from the dedicated individual who has a financial, theological, or personal reasons to disrupt a companies vital information flow.
Espionage is a valid threat to the intellectual property of a company.
There is no more cost effective way to gain a competitive advantage than to have access to your rivals information. These types of threats are just a few of the reasons that information security is becoming increasingly important. Just as we lock our homes and offices to keep out intruders, we must protect our vital computing resources from unauthorized access. One part of an overall information security initiative is the area of Intrusion Detection. The focus of this research paper is to educate the reader about the need for an intrusion detection capability.