Discuss EC-Council 112-51 Exam Topic 1 Question 6

Jay, a network administrator, was monitoring traffic flowing through an IDS. Unexpectedly, he received an event triggered as an alarm, although there is no active attack in progress.

Identify the type of IDS alert Jay has received in the above scenario.

ATrue negative alert

BFalse positive alert

CTrue positive alert

DFalse negative alert

Suggested Answer: B

A false positive alert is a type of IDS alert that occurs when the IDS mistakenly identifies benign or normal traffic as malicious or suspicious, and triggers an alarm, although there is no active attack in progress. A false positive alert can be caused by various factors, such as misconfigured IDS rules, outdated signatures, network anomalies, or legitimate traffic that resembles attack patterns. A false positive alert can waste the time and resources of the security team, as they have to investigate and verify the alert, and also reduce the trust and confidence in the IDS. A false positive alert can be reduced by tuning and updating the IDS, filtering out irrelevant traffic, and using multiple detection methods. A false positive alert is the type of IDS alert Jay has received in the above scenario, as he received an event triggered as an alarm, although there is no active attack in progress. Reference:

False Positive Alert - Week 10: Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems

What is a False Positive in Cybersecurity?

How to Reduce False Positives in Intrusion Detection Systems

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35 comments · newest first

Wenona 11 months ago

False positive is the right call, no doubt about it!

Alyce 11 months ago

I thought true positives were for actual attacks?

Vi 11 months ago

Wait, are we sure it's not a true negative?

Sabra 12 months ago

Agreed, false positive makes sense here.

Peter 12 months ago

That's definitely a false positive alert.

Freeman 1 year ago

If there's no attack but an alarm is triggered, it definitely sounds like a false positive alert to me.

Terry 1 year ago

I’m leaning towards false positive too, but I keep mixing up the definitions of true and false alerts.

Loren 1 year ago

I remember practicing a similar question, and I think a true negative alert would mean no alarm at all, so that can't be it.

Margo 1 year ago

I think this might be a false positive alert since there's no actual attack happening, but I'm not completely sure.

Wendell 1 year ago

Wait, I'm a little confused. If there's no attack, but the IDS still triggered an alert, is that really a false positive? I'll need to double-check the definitions of these IDS alert types.

Dierdre 1 year ago

Okay, let's see. If there's no active attack, but the IDS still triggered an alarm, that sounds like a false positive to me. I'm pretty confident in that answer.

Kathryn 1 year ago

Hmm, I'm not sure about this one. I'll have to think it through carefully to make sure I don't mix up the different types of IDS alerts.

Lonny 1 year ago

This one seems pretty straightforward. If there's no active attack, then the alert must be a false positive.

Erin 1 year ago

Hmm, this is a tricky one. I'm not entirely sure about the differences between the strategies mentioned. I'll need to think carefully about the details of each option to determine the best answer.

Joanna 1 year ago

This looks like a straightforward Data Loader question. I think I've got this one covered.

Theresia 1 year ago

I'm not sure I fully understand the difference between the means and standard deviations here. Should I be focusing on the actual values or the statistical measures? I'll need to think this through carefully.

Mauricio 1 year ago

I'm not too sure about non-repudiation. Is that really something digital signatures do? I feel like confidentiality could be important too.

Dannette 2 years ago

I beliDannette it's a false negative alert because Jay didn't detect an actual attack.

Tamra 2 years ago

Could it be a true negative alert instead of a false positive?

Janna 2 years ago

But why did the IDS trigger a false positive alert? Maybe there was a misconfiguration.

Cora 2 years ago

I agree with Samira, it must be a false positive alert.

Samira 2 years ago

I think Jay received a false positive alert.

Eileen 2 years ago

I don't think so, A true negative alert would mean no attack was missed by the IDS.

Katie 2 years ago

Could it be a true negative alert instead?

Christene 2 years ago

I agree with it's likely a false positive if there's no active attack.

Eileen 3 years ago

I think Jay may have received a false positive alert.

Lashandra 3 years ago

Hmm, I don't know. This is making my head spin. Can we get a clarification on the definitions of these terms? I want to make sure I understand it before I commit to an answer.

Kris 3 years ago

Ooh, good point. I think you might be right. A true negative would be when the IDS correctly identifies that there's no threat, which is what's happening here. I'm leaning towards that as the answer.

Daisy 3 years ago

Wait, hold on. Isn't a false positive when the IDS detects a threat that's not actually there? In this case, it seems like the IDS is picking up something, even though there's no attack. Shouldn't that be a true negative alert?

Gail 2 years ago

↳ replying to Daisy

No, actually it would be a true negative alert because there is no real threat detected.

Una 2 years ago

↳ replying to Daisy

So, in this case, it would be a false positive alert, right?

Carmelina 2 years ago

↳ replying to Daisy

You're right. A false positive alert is when the IDS detects something that isn't really a threat.

Rikki 3 years ago

Yeah, I think you're on the right track. Since there's no active attack, it must be a false positive alert. The IDS is triggering an alarm even though there's no actual threat.

Alishia 3 years ago

Well, from what I understand, a true positive alert means the IDS correctly identified a real threat. But if there's no active attack, then it can't be a true positive, right?

Nakita 3 years ago

Hmm, this seems like a tricky one. I'm not entirely sure about the difference between true positive, false positive, and the other options. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

EC-Council 112-51 Exam - Topic 1 Question 6 Discussion