Which type of data is triggered by tools like Snort IDS that inspect network traffic?

Alert data is generated by intrusion detection systems (IDS) like Snort when they analyze network traffic and identify potentially malicious activity or policy violations. This data typically includes information about the type of threat detected, its source and destination, the time it was detected, and often a description of the event. Alert data plays a crucial role in cybersecurity by providing administrators with timely notifications that help them respond to incidents effectively.

Session data, while relevant, pertains more to the details of individual connections or sessions rather than alerts on threats. Event masking is a process that refers to the omission of certain events to reduce noise in monitoring, which does not describe the output of the IDS. Correlation data involves the linking of different events or alerts to identify broader security incidents but is not the primary output produced directly by an IDS like Snort. Thus, the function of creating alert data based on the analysis of network traffic is the defining characteristic that sets it apart in this context.