Intrusion-Detection Systems Earn Failing Grades

In addition, Gartner predicted that intrusion-detection systems will become obsolete by 2005.

An intrusion-detection systems does not add an additional layer of security as promised by vendors and, in many cases, proves to be a costly and ineffective investment, Gartner said. As an alternative, enterprises should spend their money on software that provides both network-level and application-level firewall capabilities in an integrated product.

"Intrusion-detection systems are a market failure, and vendors are now hyping intrusion-prevention systems, which have also stalled," Gartner analyst Richard Stiennon said in a statement. "Functionality is moving into firewalls, which will perform deep packet inspection for content and malicious traffic blocking, as well as antivirus activities."

*This story courtesy of Techweb.com.