When asked to describe the differences between two similar concepts, the best way to respond is to first define each of the concepts. You can then discuss the differences and similarities between them. The language you use when responding to this question will depend on the technical background of the interviewer. If you are being interviewed by your prospective manager or another cyber security engineer from the organization, you can use detailed technical terms. If the interviewer is from the HR department or another part of the organization, keep your language simple and avoid acronyms or specific technical terms they may not be familiar with.

"HIDS is a host-based intrusion detection system while NIDS resides in the network. Both of these types of intrusion detection systems work to detect network intrusions. The key difference is that the HIDS is set up on a specific device and only monitors the traffic of that device for suspicious system activities. NIDS is set up on a network and monitors traffic on all the devices on the network."