ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) Practice Question

An Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) sits inline with network traffic, continuously inspecting packets and automatically blocking or rejecting those that match known attack signatures or violate defined security policies. In contrast, a Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) typically operates out-of-band and only generates alerts without stopping traffic. A traditional network firewall enforces predefined access control rules but does not inspect traffic for specific attack signatures in real time. A Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform aggregates and analyzes logs to detect threats after the fact; it does not actively intervene in traffic flow.