What Is Intrusion Detection?

Network Intrusion detection software is a must-have these days. Each company's software will vary somewhat (for copyright and originality purposes), but you do need one for your own network, or home computer. It differs from a firewall in that the purpose of a firewall is to stop unauthorized external contacts with your system. These offer hacker prevention largely for contacts from outside the network. Most of these will now notify the owner or network controller of intrusion attempts. Network intrusion detection systems, on the other hand, will give you warnings about events that take place within the network itself.

Why You Need Intrusion Detection?

Doors can be opened to hackers in varied ways. Two of the most common ways by which they can gain access to your computer is simply through emails, or Web pages that you visit that have spyware, or trojans (a file which looks innocent, but actually will later open doors to a hacker) attached to them. Other ways are robot spiders sent out over the Internet to find unprotected computers, and open doors. Some say that every computer attached to the Internet may be attacked by such a spider as many as 50 times each day. So, if you do not have an intrusion prevention system in place, up-to-date, then you may have regular unexpected visitors - and you may not even know it. Others say that 9 out of 10 computers have some sort of spyware, or malware on them. Could you be one of them? This article will show you what is available on the market for your protection - and much of it can be obtained for free.

The spider robots work automatically - looking for and identifying computers on the Internet that have doors, or ports, open to them. This information is then reported back to the hacker - knowing which computers to target - and which port to use. For this reason, every now and then, Microsoft will come out with a new patch for Windows, in order to close some faulty door that hackers have discovered and been using.

Be Hacker Safe Use Intrusion Detection Systems

Although they are excellent in their design, having a basic firewall by itself is not sufficient to provide hacker prevention. Detection firewall intrusion often takes place after the fact. An important note here would be that a firewall cannot remove things that are already on your computer or network.

If there was a virus before, or trojans, they will still be there afterwards. Which brings up another point - the first thing that needs to be done, before installing any firewall or intrusion detection software, is to remove all malware from the system by using a good scanner and removal software program. At the present time, there are a number of them that are free. It might be a good idea to run more than one - but be sure to disable the one you are not using. Experience shows that different software will detect different malware.

When selecting your intrusion detection software, you need to know that there are basically two kinds. One is passive, meaning that an alarm will be sounded. A second kind is active, meaning that it will terminate the communication with the computer trying to obtain access, and it will notify the Webmaster. Intrusion detection software can also stop phishing emails, spam, and those pop-up ads. They can also prevent dial up hacker from invading your system.

What Is The Best Intrusion Detection System?

Keeping your system hacker safe, and knowing how to prevent hackers from doing their dirty work is an ongoing task. It was mentioned in the beginning of the article that a determined hacker will get information. They are constantly upgrading their own methods, and the sad thing, is that much of the intrusion prevention development going on, only seeks to keep up with the methods the hackers use. The result - a hacker comes up with a new method, and - he'll get in.

One thing that is being reported as working quite well, especially for a Unix system (although there is also a Windows version, too), is an intrusion detection using Snort with wincap. This program has good reviews, and may be the software you need. Because of competition, new and better programs of detection and prevention are being developed all the time. Some systems have firewalls just for spam filters (great for email servers), and ones for general systems. There is even a new firewall system out there that is just for in-house IM communications. Of course, these new systems try to combine some of the features of a firewall and an intrusion detection system into one great package - and some of them can even remove existing malware on your system!

The best advice that could be given is to take this information and begin to do your own research into the latest products on intrusion prevention. At the same time you will want to find good malware removal software, and don't forget to consider downloading a trial version first. Some of these offer complete systems that can even be upgraded daily for the length of the trial period. Having your system protected by intrusion detection software is a great move, and will help to bring greater security to the information you want guarded the most.