Ann, a security technician, is reviewing the IDS log files. She notices a large number of alerts for multicast packets from the switches on the network. After investigation, she discovers that this…

A true negative means the system correctly identified traffic as benign and did not generate an alert; in this scenario, alerts were generated, so it cannot be a true negative.

A true positive means the system correctly identified actual malicious activity and generated a valid alert; this traffic was confirmed to be normal and not an attack.

A false positive occurs when a security system flags legitimate, benign activity as an attack or threat. In this case, the IDS alerted on normal multicast traffic from switches, which after investigation proved to be expected network behavior - the IDS incorrectly classified safe traffic as suspicious, producing an inaccurate alert.

A false negative means the system failed to detect actual malicious activity and generated no alert; in this scenario, alerts were generated (not missed), so it is not a false negative.