Honeypot! Sounds like sweet and enticing doesn’t it? We’re more likely to associate it with something sweet, attractive, and enticing. Like a collection of pastries and not anything related to technology, not to talk of cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity? Why, that’s related to curbing cybercrime. How and why are these two words correlated?
Try to think of an alluring wealth of digital jewels, just waiting to be discovered by unwary hackers. Like a trap for online bad guys. That’s where we discover the world of honeypots, a brilliant cybersecurity approach that’s equal parts interesting and effective.
A honeypot is a decoy system or resource designed to attract and detect malicious activity. It’s a trap, cleverly disguised as a valuable asset, that lures cyber attackers in with promises of sensitive data or vulnerable systems.
Honeypots provide valuable insights into an attacker’s tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), helping organizations to improve their defences and stay ahead of emerging threats. By monitoring honeypot activity, security teams can respond more quickly and effectively to incidents, reducing the risk of damage and downtime. Honeypots can also help to reduce the risk of attack by providing a decoy target for attackers, drawing them away from real systems and data.
Honeypots can take many forms, from fake databases and file servers to mock websites and network devices. Their sole purpose is to mimic the appearance and behaviour of a legitimate system, making it impossible for attackers to distinguish between the real deal and the decoy.
They differ based on design and deployment models. However, they are still decoys, intended to look like valid, susceptible systems to attract cybercriminals.
There are two main types of honeypot designs which are production honeypots and research honeypots. Production honeypots serve as decoy systems inside fully operating networks and servers, as part of an intrusion detection system (IDS). They analyze malicious activities while repelling criminals from the real system to alleviate susceptibilities. Research honeypots, on the other hand, are mainly used for educational purposes and security enhancement. They contain data which one can track when stolen to investigate the attack.
There are also some types of honeypot deployments which allow threat actors to perform varying levels of malicious activities. They include:
1. Low-Interaction Honeypots: These honeypots offer limited interaction with attackers, typically providing only basic information about the system or network. They imitate services and systems which usually lure criminals. They also provide a technique for collecting data from blind attacks such as botnets and worms malware.
2. High-Interaction Honeypots: These honeypots provide a more immersive experience for attackers, allowing them to interact with the system or network more realistically. They are complex setups that behave like real production infrastructure. They are high-maintenance and entail expertise and the use of technologies like virtual machines to make sure cybercriminals don’t access the real system.
3. Pure Honeypots: These honeypots are designed to be unsophisticated, and complete production systems for monitoring attacks through bug taps on the link that connects the honeypot to the network.
However, honeypot security has its cons as the honeypot cannot detect security breaches in legitimate systems and it does not always identify the attacker. There is also a possibility that a cybercriminal can move laterally to infiltrate the real production network after exploiting the honeypot. The honeypot has to be effectively isolated to prevent this from happening.
HONEYNET
A honeynet is a decoy network which has one or more honeypots. It looks like a real network with many systems but is hosted on one or only a few servers, each representing one environment.
So, the next time you hear about honeypots, remember: they’re not just a sweet treat for cyber attackers – they’re a vital component of any effective cybersecurity strategy.
