Cybersecurity is not always a case of the attackers trying to attack innocent victims and networks. Thanks to a decoy computer system known as a "honeypot", this role is sometimes reversed.
While a honeypot might bring to mind the image of Winnie the Pooh indulging in a giant tub of honey, it has a different connotation in the world of cybersecurity.
But what exactly is a honeypot, and how does it help mitigate cyber-attacks? Are there different types of honeypots, and do they also come with some risk factors? Let's find out.
What Is a Honeypot?
A honeypot is a deception technology employed by security teams to intentionally trap threat actors. As an integral part of a threat intelligence and detection system, a honeypot works by simulating critical infrastructures, services, and configurations so attackers can interact with these false IT assets.
Honeypots are generally deployed next to production systems that an organization already uses and can be a valuable asset in learning more about attacker behavior and the tools and tactics they employ to conduct security attacks.
Can a Honeypot Help Mitigate Cyberattacks?
A honeypot attracts malicious targets into the system by intentionally leaving a part of the network open to threat actors. This allows organizations to conduct a cyberattack in a controlled environment to gauge potential vulnerabilities in their system.
The ultimate goal of a honeypot is to enhance an organization's security posture by utilizing adaptive security. If configured properly, a honeypot can help gather the following information:
- The origin of an attack
- The behavior of the attacker and their skill level
- Information about the most vulnerable targets within the network
- The techniques and tactics employed by the attackers
- The efficacy of existing cybersecurity policies in mitigating similar attacks
A great advantage of a honeypot is that you can convert any file server, router, or computer resource across the network into one. Besides gathering intelligence on security breaches, a honeypot can also reduce the risk of false positives as it only attracts real cybercriminals.
The Different Types of Honeypots
Honeypots come in a various and designs, depending on the deployment type. We've listed some of these below.
Honeypots by Purpose
Honeypots are mostly classified by purposes such as a production honeypot or a research honeypot.
Production Honeypot: A production honeypot is the most common type and used to gather intelligence information regarding cyberattacks within a production network. A production honeypot can gather attributes like IP addresses, data breach attempts, dates, traffic, and volume.
While production honeypots are easy to design and deploy, they cannot provide sophisticated intelligence, unlike their research counterparts. As such, they are mostly employed by private companies and even high-profile personalities such as celebrities and political figures.
Research Honeypot: A more complex type of honeypot, a research honeypot is made to gather information about specific methods and tactics used by attackers. It is also used to uncover the potential vulnerabilities that exist within a system in relation to the tactics applied by attackers.
Research honeypots are mostly used by government entities, the intelligence community, and research organizations to estimate an organization's security risk.
Honeypots by Levels of Interaction
Honeypots can also be categorized by attributes. This simply means assigning the decoy based on its level of interaction.
High-Interaction Honeypots: These honeypots do not hold too much data. They are not designed to imitate a full-scale production system, but they do run all the services that a production system would—such as a fully-functional OS. These types of honeypots allow the security teams to see the actions and strategies of intruding attackers in real-time.
High-interaction honeypots are typically resource-intensive. This can present maintenance challenges, but the insight they offer is well worth the effort.
Low-Interaction Honeypots: These honeypots are mostly deployed in production environments. By running on a limited number of services, they serve as early detection points for security teams. Low-interaction honeypots are mostly idle, waiting for some activity to happen so they can alert you.
Since these honeypots lack fully functional services, not much is left for cyberattackers to achieve. However, they are fairly easy to deploy. A typical example of a low-interaction honeypot would be automated bots that scan for vulnerabilities in internet traffic such as SSH bots, automated brute forces, and input sanitization checker bots.
Honeypots by Activity Type
Honeypots can also be classified based on the type of activities they infer.
Malware Honeypots: Sometimes attackers try to infect open and vulnerable systems by hosting a malware sample on them. Since the IP addresses of vulnerable systems are not on a threat list, it is easier for attackers to host malware.
For example, a honeypot can be used for imitating a universal serial bus (USB) storage device. If a computer comes under attack, the honeypot fools the malware into attacking the simulated USB. This allows the security teams to acquire huge amounts of new malware samples from attackers.
Spam Honeypots: These honeypots attract spammers by using open proxies and mail relays. They are used to gather information on new spam and email-based spams since spammers perform tests on mail relays by using them to send emails to themselves.
If spammers successfully send large amounts of spam, the honeypot can identify the spammer's test and block it. Any fake open SMTP relays can be used as spam honeypots as they can provide knowledge on the current spam trends and identify who is using the organization's SMTP relay to send the spam emails.
Client Honeypots: As the name suggests, client honeypots imitate the critical parts of a client's environment to help with more targeted attacks. While there is no read data used for these types of honeypots, they can make any fake host look similar to a legitimate one.
A good example of a client honeypot would be using finger printable data, such as operating system information, open ports, and running services.
Proceed With Caution When Using a Honeypot
With all of its wonderful advantages, a honeypot has the potential to be exploited. While a low interaction honeypot might not pose any security risks, a high interaction honeypot can sometimes become a risky experiment.
A honeypot running on a real operating system with services and programs can be complicated to deploy and can unintentionally increase the risk of outside intrusion. This is because if the honeypot is configured incorrectly, you might end up granting access to hackers into your sensitive information unknowingly.
Also, cyberattackers are getting cleverer by the day and may hunt for badly configured honeypots to hijack connected systems. Before you venture into using a honeypot, keep in mind that the simpler the honeypot is, the lower the risk.