CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 Practice Question

A signature in the realm of an intrusion prevention system is a predefined set of rules which are used to detect patterns associated with known threats, like specific malware or network attacks. When activity matching a signature is detected, it triggers an alert or a preventive action by the system. This is crucial for identifying and responding to known threats. 'Encryption keys' are utilized to encrypt and decrypt data, not to detect threats. 'Access tokens' are used to grant permissions to users or processes, and while they are a component of access management, they do not serve the function of threat detection. 'Security certificates' authenticate entities on a network and facilitate secure communications but do not directly pertain to threat pattern detection.