What type of service is typically monitored by an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)?

An Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is primarily designed to monitor and analyze network activity in real-time to detect and prevent threats such as unauthorized access, attacks, or other malicious activities within the network. The IPS evaluates incoming and outgoing traffic, applying pre-defined security rules to identify suspicious patterns or behaviors indicative of potential intrusions.

This monitoring functionality is critical as it allows organizations to proactively defend their network perimeter and internal assets from various threats. While data storage, user authentication, and application performance are also important aspects of cybersecurity and overall system management, they do not fall under the primary functions of an IPS. Instead, these areas would typically be monitored by other specific security solutions or management tools that focus on those particular domains.