Overview
Why Do You Need Intrusion Detection?
Why Do You Need Intrusion Detection?
To answer this question, you must first consider a more basic security issue. What threats are faced by almost all businesses today?
Loss of Financial Assets
Financial institutions are very sensitive to the damage a single rogue individual in a point of trust can do. A similar threat exists in the electronic sphere. Every day, billions of dollars are transferred around the world over computer networks. Increased connectivity and the use of the Internet have increased the exposure to subversion faced by financial institutions. As more and more banks offer
Loss of Intellectual Property
When most people think of theft, they initially think of financial theft. However, a far more damaging form is theft of intellectual property. Intellectual property refers to what it is that only you know that allows you to outsmart your competitors. Your intellectual property could be the design of a new engine, the code to your latest product, or even your customer contact list. If this information got into the hands of your competitors, it would seriously damage your business. The threat to intellectual property is keenly felt by companies worldwide, and any technology that can reduce the risk of information falling into the wrong hands is very valuable.
Loss of Computing Resources
Information is of no use if it cannot be acted upon, and not having the computing resources available to process information renders it useless. Any company that offers its customers an online service is acutely aware of the potential losses that can result from even a minute of downtime. This is especially true in the case of web pages. Lack of availability of critical computing resources because of malicious actions is a serious threat faced by any company doing business on the Internet today: the loss of business (measured in dollars) can be significant. Harder to quantify, but more damaging in the long term, is the loss of consumer confidence in a business that suffers an online attack.
Another example of a loss of a critical computing resource is a corporate
Loss of Privacy
There are real concerns about privacy, for example, in the medical, insurance and banking fields. If a computer system is broken into by an outside attacker, personally sensitive data may be obtained that could leave you liable to legal action because of a lack of due diligence on your part to protect sensitive data.
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