A variety of nonlinear optimization techniques have been used for measuring effectiveness of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS). The variability of these optimization techniques resulted in several different approaches for different systems that depended on the IDS selection. There is a tremendous increase in the number of nature-inspired optimization techniques introduced in recent years and the associated applications in IDS appear recently after their introductions. Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) optimization is one of the optimization techniques that attracted many researchers, and a comprehensive review of ABC is needed. While there are few other reviews of ABC algorithms in the literature, the combination of ABC with other optimization techniques and improvement opportunities with these optimization techniques are not covered in these articles. Therefore, in this work, an extensive review of the ABC optimization techniques introduced for IDS analysis as well as the most recent techniques that are applied to IDS in combination with ABC will be covered. New research areas to be explored are recommended as a part of the conclusions and future works. This work demonstrates a clear overview of the IDS and nonlinear optimization applications along with the optimization applications and directions followed by the research community.