From the 'well aged hog' files:

When it comes to open source Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS) one name stands alone -- Snort. Yup the hog is still protecting lots of networks and today Sourcefire (Nasdaq:FIRE) --the lead commercial vendor behind Snort) issued a release celebrating Snorts 10th anniversary (technically the anniversary was December but hey...). SNORT claims 3.7 million downloads (a few of those might be mine) and over the last ten years it has continued to evolve with new IDS/IPS features.

Currently Snort is gearing up its 2.8.5 release which will add new VLAN policy functionality, which will provide new network control granularity. The new release is also set to include improved SSH traffic handling as well. Rate-based attack prevention is another key feature which will be in the upcoming release.

The big new release which I'm personally looking forward too is the Snort 3.0 release which is now an early Beta. Snort 3.0.0 is likely to be faster and is set to include native IPv6 and MPLS capabilities.

So happy (belated) birthday Snort and good luck for the next 10 years!