Building a cheap and powerful intrusion-detection system

Network-based intrusion-detection systems (IDS) are an integral component of a layered IT security strategy. As October is National Cyber Awareness Month, if your overall security system doesn't include network-based intrusion detection, now is an excellent time to consider implementing an IDS package.

Commercial network-based IDS can often be quite expensive. On the other hand, there is the common perception that implementing an open-source IDS is complicated. Recently, I had the opportunity to install an open-source IDS and found the opposite to be true. You can easily build a powerful open source-based IDS in less than a day, as I did.

The object of this article isn't to provide a step-by-step instruction for installing and managing an open-source IDS, because there are plenty of resources available for that. Rather, it's intended to lay the foundation for such. If you have ever considered implementing an open-source IDS but felt lost when researching how to do so, this article is for you.