Plan recognition is one of the important branches of artificial intelligence,and it has been preliminarily applied in intrusion detection systems(IDSs). The fundamental conception of plan recognition and IDS are introduced firstly. And then it studies on the applications and progresses of plan recognition in IDS according to the classification of plan recognizing methods,such as plan recognition based on event,plan recognition based on the Bayesian network,plan recognition based on the extended goal graph,colored petri net,adversarial planning and action state diagram. Subsequently,the common characteristics of plan recognition and IDS are thorough analyzed. Finally,the development trends and the existing problems of this domain are discussed. This review deals with the key technology and the existing problems of plan recognition implicating in IDS，which is very helpful for the related personnel research in the logistics fields.