Internet Protocol security (IPsec) supports network-level peer authentication, data origin authentication, data integrity, ...

Internet Protocol security (IPsec) supports network-level peer authentication, data origin authentication, data integrity, data confidentiality (encryption), and replay protection.  This service enforces IPsec policies created through the IP Security Policies snap-in or the command-line tool "netsh ipsec".  If you stop this service, you may experience network connectivity issues if your policy requires that connections use IPsec.  Also,remote management of Windows Firewall is not available when this service is stopped.