What concern might system administrators express regarding the deployment of a host-intrusion prevention system (HIPS) that uses third-party threat feeds?

A host-intrusion prevention system (HIPS) is designed to monitor and analyze system activities to detect and prevent potential threats in real-time. When utilizing third-party threat feeds, a valid concern for system administrators is the potential for the HIPS to block legitimate traffic mistakenly identified as malicious, which can directly lead to service outages.

The reason this is a significant concern is that HIPS operates based on predefined rules and threat intelligence, which may not always perfectly align with an organization's specific environment or operational needs. If the system misinterprets normal traffic as a threat, it could trigger automated responses that block this traffic. The resulting disruption could impact critical services, hinder business operations, and degrade user experience.

In contrast, while factors such as higher costs, system incompatibility, or increased complexity can arise with HIPS deployment, none of these issues directly relate to the operational risks associated with blocking legitimate traffic that can cause immediate service impacts. Therefore, the concern about causing outages remains a top priority for system administrators when deploying HIPS that relies on third-party threat feeds.