What is a primary risk associated with the use of an IPS?

The selection of this answer highlights a significant concern with Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). One of the primary risks associated with the use of an IPS is that false positives can result in the system incorrectly identifying legitimate traffic as malicious and consequently blocking it. This can disrupt normal business operations, affect user accessibility, and potentially lead to financial losses or damage to the organization's reputation. False positives undermine the system's effectiveness and create a scenario where important and valid communications are interrupted.

This risk underscores the importance of fine-tuning the IPS to minimize inaccuracies while maintaining security. Organizations often need to invest time and resources into properly configuring and maintaining their IPS to balance effective threat detection with uninterrupted service.

Other options do raise relevant points but do not encompass the inherent risk that directly affects everyday operations as dramatically as the possibility of false positives does. For example, while the inability to block known malicious traffic can be a concern, it tends to reference more of a design flaw or limitation rather than a risk associated with day-to-day functioning. Increased manual configuration efforts could be a side effect but does not directly address the operational impact. Lastly, a reduction in logging capabilities could pertain to a specific configuration issue, but it is less central to the operational integrity that false positives disrupt.