A honeypot is a security device that diverts malicious traffic away from your production systems by mimicking the appearance of real-world servers, applications, and infrastructure. They allow you to gain insight into attacker tools, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) without putting your valuable data or actual production systems at risk. They also act as a valuable forensics resource for monitoring and investigating incidents that occur on your network.
There are two types of honeypots: low-interaction and high-interaction. Low-interaction honeypots are easy to set up and contain basic simulated TCP and IP protocols and network services. They are designed to collect information on intrusions but don’t engage an attacker long enough to gather much detailed data. High-interaction honeypots are harder to set up and require more resources to engage an attacker and provide more detailed threat intelligence. They can be as simple as a fake folder in SharePoint that has sensitive-looking data or as complex as a simulated Active Directory group with “privileged” access or a team chat channel with real-looking data and conversations.
The most effective honeypots are high-interaction because they offer more realistic services and processes than low-interaction ones. This is why it’s important to use a reliable honeypot detector that can identify the difference between real-world servers and false ones. Our free smart contract scanner has an added feature that flags tokens that could be a honeypot. This gives you an extra layer of protection against crypto scams and prevents the loss of your hard-earned funds.
One of the best ways to detect a honeypot is by fingerprinting. The ability to fingerprint a honeypot is critical for security teams because it allows them to monitor attacks more effectively and quickly.
In order to fingerprint a honeypot, an adversary sends out ping requests with fragments of known commands to different IP addresses on the Internet and waits for replies. If all the replies are from the same host, it can be determined that the attack is coming from a honeypot. This can be done using a variety of techniques such as nmap scans, vulnerability scanning, and bruteforce attempts.
Another way to detect a honeypot is by monitoring the underlying code of the tokens or you could just use a honeypot detector. If the underlying code contains a suspiciously large number of loops or functions, it may be a fake token that is intended to trap your funds. Our free smart contract scanner includes a dedicated section that checks the underlying code for these issues, helping you steer clear of financial heartache.
Detecting a honeypot can save you from wasting your investment and help keep your business secure. By monitoring your network for potential threats, you can avoid costly breaches and mitigate vulnerabilities before they become an issue on your real-world production system. Varonis can alert you in real-time when an attack is detected on your honeypot and allow you to investigate the incident with a robust audit trail. It can also alert you to the presence of an unauthenticated user on your network, providing a timely warning that you may be dealing with a fraudulent or compromised honeypot that is attempting to steal your data or funds.