Summary | Protect Your Information with Intrusion Detection (Power)

In this chapter, I have attempted to summarize all existing data on attacks and attackers. This should provide a basis for understanding the intrusion detection technologies that will be described in subsequent chapters. As has been shown, most attacks can only be implemented due to vulnerabilities in the components of information systems. If these vulnerabilities were non-existent, most current security tools would be efficient when preventing or stopping all possible attacks. However, programs are written by human beings, and humans tend to make mistakes. Because of this, vulnerabilities appear, which makes attacks possible.

Still, if all attacks were built according to the classical "one-to-many" scheme, fire-walls and other contemporary security tools would successfully deter them from preventing and stopping attacks. However, distributed attacks have appeared on the scene, and traditional tools become inefficient when dealing with such an attack. Therefore, new technologies must be developed — namely, intrusion detection technologies, which will be discussed in the next chapter.