P

passive detection

A method of intrusion detection that has an IDS present in the network in a silent fashion; it does not interfere with communications in progress.

Password Authentication Protocol (PAP)

A legacy cleartext authentication protocol for remote server access that does not support stronger authentication mechanisms.

pattern matching

A network-analysis approach that compares each individual packet against a database of signatures. The inherent weakness in this method is that such patterns must be known (and definitions in place) before they can be used to recognize attacks or exploits.

performance baseline

See baseline.

performance monitoring

The act of using tools to monitor changes to system and network performance.

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