Honeypot is a virtual device that resembles a natural system. A real honeypot must mimic the existing system. You’ll pay for hardware and monitoring. If you’re a small business, you can use free honeypots. In this article, you will learn what is a honeypot? how it protects against cyber attacks.

Low-interaction honeypots

While traditional IDS and IPS rely on published signatures to detect attacks, low-interaction honeypots help prevent cyber attacks. These devices are a rich source of information, collecting data from network traffic. They help identify malicious activity, including zero-day vulnerabilities. They also help identify attacks before they reach production systems. As a result, honeypots are valuable tools for researchers who wish to understand threats in network systems better.

Honeypots typically mimic a specific device or system within an organization. This fills detection gaps common in production networks. Research honeypots tend to be more complex and store different types of data. A pure honeypot is a production-mimicking system that is hard to maintain. Honeyd has two main categories: research honeypots and production honeypots.

Honeypots have become popular security tools for monitoring network traffic. They can also help in developing a cohesive security policy for organizations. Generally, low-interaction honeypots have lower resources. However, they are vulnerable to common security attacks, including spoofing. These tools can help identify the source of cyber-attacks and help in digital forensic investigation. In addition, these honeypots can protect a network by gathering valuable information on the cybercriminal behind them.

Research honeypots

A research honeypot is a device used to gather intelligence from hackers, such as identifying patterns and connections between attacks. These devices protect systems and analyze how hackers develop their strategies. Researchers use the data collected by these devices to track stolen data and determine how attackers can reach their targets.

There are three main types of honeypots: high-interaction honeypots and low-interaction ones. High-interaction honeypots are highly realistic and imitate applications, systems, and operating systems, which gives researchers the necessary information to stop an attack. On the other hand, low-interaction honeypots do not mimic real-world systems and therefore do not keep an attacker’s attention for long. On the other hand, malware honeypots simulate real-world systems and operating systems to fool and stall attackers.

The second type of honeypot is known as a production honeypot. These systems simulate a legitimate target such as an eCommerce website, a ticketing system, or an application targeted by cybercriminals. By setting up a production honeypot, attackers can learn more about the tactics and motivations of these bad actors and may even be deterred from attacking real servers. This is why research honeypots are so important.

Deception port for honeypots

In addition to helping you identify potential threats, a Deception Port for Honeypots can help you detect malicious activity. Monitoring legitimate traffic makes it easier to distinguish malicious IP addresses from legitimate ones. When you detect malicious IP addresses, you can take steps to prevent them. If not, you may miss the necessary signals. Fortunately, the benefits of using Honeypots outweigh the risks.

Fred Cohen invented the Deception Toolkit. He argues that every system that runs his honeypot should have a deception port so that adversaries cannot detect it. This way, they cannot launch a cyber attack and disrupt your network. This technique helps you protect your network and data from threats by deflecting malicious traffic. Regardless of the method used to detect the honeypot, the Deception Port can help you protect your organization from cyberattacks.

In addition to deception ports, Honeypots can also be designed to collect information on the tactics and strategies of the attackers. On the other hand, production honeypots focus on gathering information about active attacks. They provide additional monitoring opportunities and fill common detection gaps. Research honeypots tend to be more complex than production honeypots and store more data types. On the other hand, a pure Honeypot is a complete production-mimicking system that uses high-level resources and collects information from attackers. However, they are more challenging to set up and maintain.