- An intrusion prevention system (IPS) is a network security instrument (which can be hardware or software) that continuously monitors a network for harmful behaviour and takes action to prevent it, such as reporting, blocking, or dropping it.
- It is more advanced than an intrusion detection system (IDS), which can only identify harmful activity and warn an administrator if it is detected. Intrusion prevention systems are sometimes integrated as part of an NGFW or UTM solution.
- They, like many other network security systems, must be capable to scanning a large volume of traffic without degrading network performance.
Read More: What is a DDoS attack?