What is a honeypot? How it protects against cyber attacks?

In this blog post, we’ll gain a thorough understanding about the concept and working of honeypots in cybersecurity as a tool to counter against cyberattacks, the different categories of honeypots, the various benefits of using honeypots in cyber security, and the multiple areas of application for honeypots in cyber security. 

Concept & Working of Honeypots in Cybersecurity

• In the context of cyber security, honeypots refer to the software programs that are used as bait to attract cybercriminals or hackers into honeypots. They are most often utilized by organizations and enterprises involved in cybersecurity.

• One interpretation of honeypots originates from the field of espionage, where exploiting a love relationship to gather information is referred to as “laying a honey trap”. A honey trap is frequently used to attract an enemy spy, who is subsequently forced to disclose all of his or her sensitive or confidential information.

• The honeypot software works as a tool to make fool of cybercriminals by making them believe that they are targeting a real computer network or system, but in reality, it pretends to be a real computer system or network. For example, a honeypot might resemble a company’s billing systems since cybercriminals or hackers are more likely to target credit or debit card details via billing systems.

• Once the cybercriminals or hackers are inside, their behavior may be examined to understand as how to secure the genuine computer system or network. By keeping an eye on the traffic to honeypot systems, cyber security analysts may better understand the intents, techniques, and objectives of cybercriminals.

Different Categories of Honeypots in Cybersecurity

1. Honeypot Security Based on Purpose

• Research Honeypots: A research honeypot is a device used by researchers to investigate cyberattacks done by cybercriminals or hackers and develop different ways to avoid them.

• Production Honeypots: Production honeypots are installed on organization’s internal network. With the help of production honeypots, legitimate servers of organizations are prevented from hacker’s target by identifying and distracting them from active attacks on the internal network.

2. Honeypot Security Based on Activity

• Email Honeypots: Spammers are caught in the act using email accounts created particularly for this purpose in email honeypots. If the username contains a mistake that was made by a person or a computer, the spam filter immediately throws emails into the spam folder. Honey Mail, Maloney, and Spam HAT are some of the examples of Email Honeypots.

• Database Honeypots: Database honeypots are designed to attract cyberattacks based on particular database traits, such SQL injection. In order to divert cyber attackers from the real database, database firewalls and honeypot systems are deployed. Elastic Honey, Honey MySQL, and MongoDB-Honey Proxy are some of the examples of Database Honeypots.

• Malware Honeypots: As the name suggests, honeypot malware replicates weak apps, APIs, and systems in order to trigger malicious attacks. Using the information in the form of data gathered, it is possible to identify malicious trends and develop efficient malware detectors.

• Spider Honeypots: When malicious botnets and ad-network spiders attempt to reach the honeypot via their headers, spider honeypots are typically employed to stop them by creating web pages and links only accessible to these crawlers.

• Honey Bots: Honeypots and cybercriminals both develop over time. Honeypots are a trap since hackers can’t communicate with them. Hackers can imitate legitimate systems to deceive them through interactions with Honey Bots. Because of this, hackers invest a lot of time and money on Honey Bot’s exploits. Additionally, they reveal their identity to the targets which they try to attack.

3. Honeypot Security Based on Complexity

• Pure Honeypots: To run a pure honeypot, multiple servers are needed. The sensors in a pure honeypot are used to track data that is falsely represented as confidential and keep an eye on attacker activities.

• Low Interaction Honeypots: Low-interaction honeypots don’t communicate with the primary operating system; hence they are less dangerous. They are incredibly simple to deploy, as they use minimal number of resources. However, the major drawback of employing low-interaction honeypots is that skilled hackers may quickly find and avoid them as they simulate services most likely to be requested by cyber attackers, low-interaction honeypots provide very limited insight and control.

• Medium Interaction Honeypots: In comparison to low-interaction honeypots, medium-interaction honeypots allow the hacker to do more actions. In contrast to what we may anticipate from a honeypot with low-interaction, the medium-interaction honeypots are designed to offer certain sorts of activities and responses.

• High Interaction Honeypots: High-interaction honeypots provide a number of opportunities. By providing a variety of services and activities, they waste the hackers’ time while attempting to get all the data they have. These honeypots include the real-time operating system, making them relatively hazardous if hackers discover them. High engagement honeypots are often costly and challenging to set up. Despite this, it gives us an abundance of information about hackers.

Benefits of Honeypots in Cybersecurity

Following are some of the notable benefits of using honeypot security:

• Protecting networks from hackers may be accomplished by combining honeypots with firewalls and other security measures.

• Honeypots detect both internal and external threats, in contrast to firewalls. Many businesses struggle to identify internal assaults.

• IT security teams may defend themselves against cyberattacks that firewalls are unable to stop by using honeypots.

• The use of honeypots has been discovered to have significant advantages for defending against internal and external threats.

Application Areas of Honeypots in Cybersecurity

The user can choose from the following applications offered by honeypot security:

• Any significant system, such as Blockchain, may have its vulnerabilities tested using honeypots. Developers may enhance security procedures with the use of this technology.

• With the use of honeypots, one may successfully analyze threats that can be classified by its IP address and purpose for scanning a network.

• Honeypots are resource-light since there is little traffic. The legitimate traffic cannot be detected by these honeypots. This makes it simple to set up honeypots using inexpensive hardware.

Conclusion

So, we can conclude to say that, cybersecurity with honeypots, it is simple to send out alerts and information on an attacker’s activities. The cyber security team of any organization can be vigilant if an adversary engages with honeypots. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to use honeypot software in firms or enterprises with high data security threats. 

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