Honeypots are the devices or system that are deployed to trap attackers attempting to gain unauthorized access to the system or network as they are deployed in an isolated environment and being monitored. Typically, honeypots are deployed in DMZ (demilitarized zone)and configured identically to a server. Any probe, malware, infection, the injection will be immediately detected by this way as honeypots appear to be a legitimate part of the network.Honeypots are a type of deception technology that allows you to understand attacker behavior patterns. Security teams can use honeypots to investigate cybersecurity breaches to collect intel on how cybercriminals operate. They also reduce the risk of false positives, when compared to traditional cybersecurity measures, because they are unlikely to attract legitimate activity.
Honeypots vary based on design and deployment models, but they are all decoys intended to look like legitimate, vulnerable systems to attract cybercriminals.
Types of Honeypots
1. High-Interaction Honeypots
High-Interaction Honeypots are configured with a verity of services which is basically enabled to waste the time of an attacker and gain more information from this intrusion. Multiple honeypots can be deployed on a single physical machine to be restored if attacker even compromised the honeypot.
2. Low-Interaction Honeypots
Low-Interaction Honeypots are configured to entertain only the services that are commonly requested by the users. Response time, less complexity and few resources make Low-interaction honeypot deployment more easy as compared to High-interaction honeypots.
Detecting Honeypots
The basic logic of detecting a honeypot in a network is by probing the services. The attacker usually crafts a malicious packet to scan running services on the system and open and closed ports information. These services may be HTTPS, SMTPS or IMAPS or else. Once attacker extracts the information, it can attempt to build a connection, the actual server will complete the process of three-way handshaking but the deny of handshaking indicates the presence of a honeypot. Send-Safe Honeypot Hunter, Nessus,and Hping tools can be used to detect honeypots.
What is the difference between a firewall and a honeypot?
A firewall is designed to keep the attackers out of the network whereas honeypots are designed to entice the hackers to attack the system. This is done so that a security researcher can know how hackers operate and can know which systems and ports the hackers are most interested in.
Honeypot Limitations
Honeypot security has its limitations as the honeypot cannot detect security breaches in legitimate systems, and it does not always identify the attacker. There is also a risk that, having successfully exploited the honeypot, an attacker can move laterally to infiltrate the real production network. To prevent this, you need to ensure that the honeypot is adequately isolated.
To help scale your security operations, you can combine honeypots with other techniques. For example, the canary trap strategy helps find information leaks by selectively sharing different versions of sensitive information with suspected moles or whistleblowers.
There are many applications and use cases for honeypots, as they work to divert malicious traffic away from important systems, get an early warning of a current attack before critical systems are hit, and gather information about attackers and their methods.
Here are some Honeypot Tool:-
1)KFSensor
2)SPECTER
3)PatriotBox
4)HIHAT
