A honeypot is a fake network system that lures cyber attackers and captures unauthorized activities. It enables security teams to detect, deflect and study attacks.
It also identifies how hackers progress. This helps prevent them from using the same tactics and techniques to attack other networks. High-interaction honeypots can waste the time of black hat hackers, but are more expensive to maintain.
Real-time alerts
A honeypot is a virtual device that captures malicious activity in real time. It alerts security teams to unauthorized activities that can be analyzed, enabling them to respond appropriately. The data collected from honeypots helps security professionals understand attack methods and tools, and it can be used to refine and improve existing cybersecurity systems.
A top honeypot detector offers real-time alerts, allowing you to track access attempts and analyze them for threat intelligence. This will help you to prioritize threats, keep false alerts to a minimum, and identify the source of attacks.
Honeypots are not limited to traditional servers – they can take the form of folders or SharePoint sites containing sensitive-looking data, fake Active Directory groups that grant privileged access, or a Microsoft Teams channel filled with simulated information and conversations. This makes them effective at drawing the attention of hackers, as they are likely to be distracted by the simulated data and interactions.
Easy to setup
Whether you’re a security researcher or sysadmin, having a honeypot on your network can help you catch malicious traffic. These traps capture a variety of exploits and malware, giving you valuable information about the threats in your environment. They also provide valuable clues about the attacker’s tactics, which can help you strengthen your defenses.
Using a honeypot to monitor your system is an effective way to identify malware, but if you’re not careful, it could be easy for attackers to detect and bypass the trap. The attackers may use a port scan or other techniques to find the honeypot, and then try to break in through it.
To prevent this from happening, it’s best to set up your honeypot in a remote location. It’s also a good idea to test the honeypot setup by running an nmap scan and other common attack patterns, such as vulnerability scanning or exploit attempts. This will help you determine if the honeypot is working correctly.
Detects malicious activity
A honeypot mimics real systems and applications, attracting cybercriminals who are looking for their next target. The granular cybersecurity data a honeypot captures from an attack can help identify specific actions taken by malware and attackers, making it easier to track attacks and improve prevention techniques.
Honeypots also reduce the number of false positives compared to other security solutions. This is because genuine user activity doesn’t occur on a honeypot, ensuring that any suspicious data activity is likely malicious. Learn more on a honeypot detector now!
The ability to set up low-interaction honeypots that require minimal hardware can help reduce costs, as well. These types of honeypots can be used on unused computers to reduce the amount of in-house resources needed for honeypot network security. The Varonis alerts that can be triggered by a honeypot’s activity will give your Incident Response team a head’s up when someone’s poking around the data, providing time to act before a threat can access valuable information.
Reduces the risk of data loss
A honeypot mimics a real computer system with applications and data, fooling attackers into thinking it’s a legitimate target. It can even be designed to mimic an organization’s customer billing system – a frequent target for criminals seeking credit card numbers. Once they gain access, attackers can be tracked and their behavior assessed for ideas about how to make the real network more secure.
A well-designed honeypot can also be a valuable training tool for the security team. It enables them to observe how hackers move through the network and identify vulnerabilities that may have gone unnoticed.
Using Varonis DatAlert, you can create custom alerts to trigger when there’s activity on the honeypot and notify your Incident Response team immediately. This way, you can investigate the threat quickly and prevent real-time sensitive data compromise. If the attack is serious, you can also use Varonis audit and forensic capabilities to track the attacker. It’s a powerful and cost-effective way to improve your detection and response time.