To Catch a Cybercriminal: Honeypot Usage Considerations and Benefits

By: Kevin O’Connor, Director of Threat Research

We returned to the basics in our most recent blog, Honeypots 101: Origin, Services, and Types covering the evolution of honeypots, how organizations are deploying them, and the different types that can help lure away cybercriminals from key assets. Deception tools, like honeypots, add another layer of defense to protect your system while drawing attackers away from where you don’t want them.

We are diving deeper into usage considerations and why deception technology expands security defenses.

Business and IT Systems Benefits

Honeypots are beneficial inclusions in an IT System’s Security Plan for many reasons, including[1]:

  1. Early warning and detection of attacks: Honeypots can detect attacks before they reach critical systems allowing security personnel to respond quickly and minimize damage.
  2. Intelligence gathering and analysis of attack methods: By observing attackers’ behavior on a honeypot, businesses can gain insight into attackers’ methods and techniques to compromise the system. They can provide valuable information about the TTPs used by attackers, which can be used to develop more effective security measures and assist in incident response.
  3. Detecting new threats: Honeypots can detect new and emerging threats as attackers leverage new TTPs, which the honeypot may observe in detail.
  4. Improving security posture and reducing risk: Honeypots can improve an organization’s security posture by better understanding the TTPs used by attackers and developing more effective security solutions. Luring attacks on a decoy system can help reduce the risk of an actual attack on the organization’s networks and systems.

Honeypots can also be used to help meet industry-specific compliance requirements. For example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requires merchants who accept, process, store or transmit credit card information to implement security measures to protect sensitive purchase-related data. While honeypots are not explicitly mentioned by PCI DSS or any other compliance requirements, Adlumin tracks, they can be used as part of a comprehensive and broader security strategy to detect and respond to security threats.

Similarly, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires that healthcare organizations implement administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronically protected health information (ePHI). Again, while honeypots are not explicitly mentioned in HIPAA, they can be used as part of a comprehensive security strategy to detect and respond to security threats to ePHI.

Honeypot Usage and Deployment Considerations

When deciding as an organization to implement and use honeypots as part of a layered security defense, some key considerations can help ensure the honeypot is safe and effective[2].

  1. Placement – a honeypot’s placement is critical to its effectiveness. Honeypots must be strategically positioned within the network to offer potential attackers a target while appearing as legitimate services. Placement also needs to consider the network space in which you are allowing the attacker to gain a foothold. Additionally, decisions to deploy the honeypot on external vs. internal facing infrastructure will determine the types, frequency, and severity of detected attacks. External-facing honeypots are subject to frequent scanning, rogue exploitation by botnets, and attacks of convenience by many different threat actors. This can increase the noise in the logging signals and make it hard to separate real and targeted threats.
  2. Isolation – the honeypot should be isolated from the rest of the network and not contain any sensitive information. This minimizes the attacker’s risk of leveraging access to the honeypots to continue their attack throughout the network using the honeypot as an initial foothold. Honeypot configurations must ensure the attacker is trapped and actions monitored appropriately.
  3. Monitoring – the honeypot should be monitored closely to gather information about the attacker’s TTPs which can be fed into the network and security defenses. It’s not enough to just deploy a honeypot – the honeypot’s logs must be analyzed and used to create detections for malicious activity to warn the organization of potential attacks.
  4. Management & Maintenance– the honeypot should be managed by experienced security personnel who can effectively configure, monitor, and maintain it to ensure its effectiveness in detecting and responding to attacks. Additionally, the honeypot should be regularly updated to ensure that it continues to mimic real-world systems and applications and remain attractive to attackers.
  5. Integration with other Security Measures – the honeypot should be integrated with other security measures such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, incident response plans, SIEMs, MDRs, and detection alert management, investigation, and response systems. This ensures that the honeypot contributes to the network’s security and helps increase its value by generating detections and alerts to activity. Some honeypots can be used to build detections dynamically based on attacker compromise.
  6. Legal Considerations – the legal implications of using a honeypot must be considered, as some countries have strict laws regarding the monitoring and interception of communications. Organizations should comply with relevant laws and regulations when using a honeypot. There is also the potential to attract and trap innocent users, which should be carefully considered before deploying a honeypot.

Honeypots and Zero Trust

Zero Trust is a cybersecurity approach that assumes all network traffic is untrusted and consequently subject to strict security controls and monitoring. The Zero Trust model assumes that every user, device, and application is a potential threat and should be verified and authenticated before being granted access to sensitive data or systems.

In a Zero Trust model, network access is never automatically granted, even if a user or device is within the network’s perimeter. Instead, all access requirements are subject to multi-factor authentication (MFA) and monitored for suspicious activity. The Zero Trust approach protects against various threats, including malware, phishing attacks, and unauthorized access. By verifying and monitoring all network traffic, organizations can more expediently detect and respond to security incidents, reducing the risk of data breaches and more severe attacks.

Zero Trust and honeypots are security measures used to protect against security threats. While Zero Trust focuses on identity verification and attestation of all users, devices, and applications before allowing access to sensitive data and systems, honeypots detect unauthorized access to sensitive data by creating decoy targets that appear valuable and vulnerable to attackers.

Honeypots can be part of a multi-layered, defense-in-depth security strategy to detect threats to the organization and its networks. If a honeypot is accessed, it can trigger an alert which can be used to investigate potential incidents which complement other Zero Trust security measures such as MFA, continuous monitoring, and network segmentation. Honeypots can highlight where Zero Trust measures have failed and provide early warning against attacker operations and compromise.

Expand Your Security Defenses

The evolution of honeypots is a testament to the creativity and ingenuity of cybersecurity professionals and their commitment to staying ahead of the ever-evolving threat landscape. Honeypots can provide deep insight into attackers’ methods and motivations. However, thought needs to be given to what type of honeypot is best for an organization, what services should be simulated, and how to maximize value through proper deployment and usage.

Visit the Adlumin for Honeypots resource page for more information on expanding your defenses with deception technology.

References

  1. Andress, J., & Andress, J. (2015). Chapter 10 – Network Security. In The Basics of Information Security: Understanding the fundamentals of infosec in theory and Practice (pp. 151–169). essay, Syngress.
  2. Sanders, C., Randall, L., Smith, J., & Sanders, C. (2014). Chapter 12 – Using Canary Honeypots for Detection. In Applied Network Security Monitoring: Using Open Source Tools (pp. 317–338). essay, Syngress, an imprint of Elsevier.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Deceiver: Deception Technology for Your Zero-Trust Arsenal

By: Brittany Demendi, Corporate Communications Manager

Register for Adlumin’s Upcoming Webinar:

Beauty is in the Eye of the Deceiver: Deception Technology for Your Zero-Trust Arsenal 

Date: March 16, 2023

Time: 5:00 PM EST

Attendee Linkhttps://adlumin.com/webinar/beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-deceiver/

As cyberattacks become more frequent and sophisticated, traditional security measures are no longer enough to keep organizations safe. To help businesses stay ahead of cybercriminals, Adlumin’s VP, Chief of Strategy, Mark Sangster, and Director of Threat Research, Kevin O’Connor, discuss zero trust and complementing detection and response capabilities with deception technology.

By deploying deception technology, businesses can detect cyberattacks early, reducing the impact of any breach. It also gives businesses insight into criminal tactics and techniques, allowing them to better protect themselves against future attacks.

Tune in to learn:

  • How zero trust applies to cyber risk management.
  • How to use deception technologies to detect threats quickly and gain threat intelligence into criminal tactics and techniques.
  • Ways to complement detection and response capabilities with deception technologies to strengthen your security posture.

Honeypots 101: Origin, Services, and Types

By: Kevin O’Connor, Director of Threat Research

The Origin of the Honeypot

In the 1980s, honeypots became a permanent fixture in cybersecurity, riding the lines of defensive and deception technologies. The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage, published by Clifford Stoll in 1989, details the hunt for a computer hacker (later identified to be Markus Hess) who digitally broke into Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL) in 1986[1]. Stoll provides one of the first descriptions of what is known today as a honeypot.

To catch the hacker, Stoll set up an elaborate ploy by inventing a fictitious department under an imaginary contract within a real organization under LBNL that Stoll suspected the hacker was targeting. Creating a fake user working for the faux organization, Stoll filled the user’s digital assets with attractive-looking documents designed to gain the hacker’s attention and lure them into grabbing the files. His efforts would ultimately lead to discovering the hacker’s identity as Hess and the following arrest in Germany.

After Stoll flew to Germany and testified against Hess, it became public that Hess had been selling the bounty of his hacking operations against organizations like LBNL to the Soviet Union’s KGB intelligence agency. They would also work out that a Hungarian agent had contacted the fictitious LBNL department using information that could have only been sourced from Hess. This was part of the KGB’s standard routine to verify Hess’s information.

Later, in 1991, Bill Cheswick, considered one of the pioneers of computer security, published An Evening with Berferd in Which a Cracker is Lured, Endured, and Studied[2]. The Chronicle, one of the earliest technical descriptions of a honeypot, details leading a hacker on a “merry chase” to trace his location and learn his techniques. It details the bait and traps used to lure him and is the work that first applied and popularized the terminology of “jail” in cyber security. Cheswick had created a digital jail to trap the actor and watch their actions in detail[3].

The concept of a honeypot has come a long way since its first use in the 1980s. Pioneers like Stoll and Cheswick were instrumental in laying the foundation for what has become an essential component of modern cybersecurity strategies. With the advancements in technology and the increasing sophistication of cyber-attacks, the use of honeypots has evolved over the years. Today, honeypots are used for defense, research, threat intelligence gathering, and incident response. Let’s explore the current usage landscape of honeypots in the field of cybersecurity and some considerations in deployment and usage.

What is a Honeypot?

Honeypots are security systems that lure cyber attackers and track their activities in a secure, isolated, and monitored environment. Honeypots can distract potential attacks from a target’s critical resources; act as an intelligence-gathering platform about attacks and their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs); and strengthen security overall. Information collected by honeypots can also be used to identify vulnerabilities in a system, software, or protocol. They are, in essence, a decoy computer system meant to attract, trap, and expose potential attackers. As attackers are drawn to the honeypot and focus their efforts there, more valuable systems and data are protected by the attacker’s exposure through the honeypot. A well-designed and implemented honeypot is isolated from the rest of the network. It does not contain any sensitive information, so there is no risk of the attacker compromising it and accessing sensitive data.

Common Honeypot Services

Modern honeypots will typically work to provide “jailed” access to systems over specific protocols and their related applications, such as email, web services, and network administration services. These targeted applications may present high-value access to the target, data collection, theft opportunities, or an easy way to compromise and pivot through an organization’s and network’s systems.

Common services that are often developed into honeypots include:

  • File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
  • Telnet
  • Secure Shell (SSH)
  • HTTP Web Services
  • MySQL or Database Specific Applications
  • Administrative Applications
  • Other Remote Access Methods (VPNs, Remote Desktops, and remote support apps)

Most network and computer services can be adapted into a honeypot with the proper modifications. Which honeypot services your organization deploys will depend on its legitimate services, attack surface, and known attacker motivations.

Types of Honeypots

Honeypots come in various forms and have evolved to meet the changing threat landscape. Several types of honeypots are designed to cater to specific security needs.

  1. Low-interaction honeypots are designed to simulate a limited number of services and are less complex to implement, making them ideal for small-scale organizations. On the other hand, high-interaction honeypots offer a much more realistic and complex environment and are designed for organizations with larger security teams[4].
  2. Another type of honeypot is a hybrid honeypot, which is a combination of low-interaction and high-interaction honeypots. This honeypot balances complexity and ease of deployment, making it ideal for medium-sized organizations.
  3. Virtual honeypots simulate a network environment and lure attackers into a virtual and often restricted or more heavily monitored network enclave.
  4. Honeypots can also be combined to create a honeynet or honeyfarm, a network of honeypots used to monitor and track attacker activities. Honeynets are often used to gather information about and monitor large-scale attacks, such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Through pioneers like Stoll and Cheswick, honeypots have evolved from simple traps used to study and track hackers to complex security solutions that detect, prevent, and respond to cyber threats. The term “honeypot” has become synonymous with deceptive security technologies, and the concept is widely used in various industries, from financial services to healthcare, to protect against cyberattacks. And regardless of the type, honeypots are an indispensable tool in any cybersecurity arsenal that is crucial in detecting and mitigating cyber-attacks.

Visit the Adlumin for Honeypots resource page for more information on expanding your defenses with deception technology.

References

  1. Stoll, C. (1989). The Cuckoo’s Egg: Inside the world of Computer Espionage. Doubleday.
  2. Cheswick, B. (n.d.). Biography. Bill Cheswick’s bio. Retrieved January 30, 2023, from https://www.cheswick.com/ches/bio.html
  3. Cheswick, B. (1992). https://cheswick.com/ches/papers/berferd.pdf. Winter USENIX Conference, San Francisco, 20–24. https://doi.org/https://cheswick.com/ches/papers/berferd.pdf
  4. Edgar, T. W., & Manz, D. O. (2017). Research methods for cyber security. Syngress, an imprint of Elsevier.

Adlumin Promotes Miguel Hablutzel to Vice President of Managed Security Services

By: Brittany Demendi, Corporate Communications Manager

Adlumin announced the promotion of Miguel Hablutzel as Vice President of Managed Security Services. Hablutzel brings a wealth of experience and expertise to Adlumin, and his efforts speak volumes through Adlumin’s continued growth and expansion.

Before his time at Adlumin, Hablutzel served as the President and CEO of a Cybersecurity Consulting company based in Tampa, Florida, and a Vice President of Product Strategy for a large security management company in North Carolina. He oversaw solutions ranging from developing and managing a 24×7 Security Operations Center (SOC) to Virtual Information Security Officer Program (vISO).

Please join Adlumin in congratulating Hablutzel on his outstanding contributions to his department and his promotion.

Six Cybersecurity Solutions to Protect Higher Education and K-12 School Districts

By: Brittany Demendi, Corporate Communications Manager

Usually, when we think of primary targets of cyberattacks, finance, banking, healthcare, and even municipalities come to mind., But, in reality, higher education and K-12 schools are also key targets. From sensitive student information to financial and research data, cybercriminals have plenty of temptation to target education. The most disturbing aspect of these attacks is that higher education and K-12 schools are tremendously behind in their cybersecurity efforts. The secret is out, and cyber criminals are showing no mercy. Microsoft reported that education recently accounted for 80% of enterprise malware.

Challenge: The Education Industry is Lagging in Cybersecurity

The education sector is struggling to keep up with cyber threats, and technology alone is not enough to protect schools. Education, like cybersecurity, evolves and requires people and products to do the same. If not, there is a lot at stake.

For example, school districts use specialized software to track students’ progress records, highly sensitive and confidential information on children. The New York Times reports on a recent cyberattack where the personal information of over 1 million former and current students was affected. Intimate information was breached, including descriptions of disabilities, behavior incidents, migrant status, ethnicities, names, birth dates, and more. This data breach violates student privacy laws that schools must abide by.

This cyberattack propelled the school district to up its cybersecurity and come out with multiple press releases to reassure students, employees, and parents that they are doing everything possible to secure sensitive data. The goal is not to let it get to this stage, but how can higher education and K-12 school districts mitigate risk and not fall behind?

Six Solutions to Eliminate Risk and Illuminate Threats

  1. Tech Funding Reevaluation: Addressing current and rising risks when assessing your cybersecurity budget is key. See if there is an opportunity to reallocate the budget to a platform that provides visibility and services with greater value in the long run rather than a security or anti-virus program. Unlike large corporations, education tends to operate on a smaller budget, so every dollar must provide the most value possible.
  2. Incident Response Plan: As an educational organization, you are consistently in the spotlight, especially for your reactions to challenging situations. The same goes for when an attack occurs. The media, parents, and students are watching to see the response plan with their personal opinion on deck. Put together a response plan where you have steps in place if a data breach or security incident happens.

    In addition, conduct a tabletop exercise to clarify the responsibilities and roles of your incident response team.  Knowing who makes what decision during a cyber crisis and how your team works together is ideal, which we have identified previously in The Ultimate Guide to Managing Strong Personalities During a Cyber Crisis.

    The tabletop exercise highlights team members and any gaps within your plan resulting in an action plan for an emergency. They are vital to business operations and help mitigate further reputational damage that schools cannot afford

  1. Invest in a Security Operations Platform: Cybercriminals are evolving their tactics and strategies, and so should educational organizations. IT teams are stretched thin, especially when the budget is low. Finding a security operations platform that includes risk management is built to assist in taking command of security and compliance—streamlining data ingesting, compliance, and analysis workflows throughout the enterprise. This illuminates system vulnerabilities, unseen cyber threats, and IT operations, so the path to visibility is clear.
  2. Implement Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services: MDR services deliver 24×7 benefits scaled for higher education and K-12 school districts of all sizes. These services extend your security team without being too costly, offering around-the-clock coverage and access to one platform with everything in view. Many organizations opt for MDR services because their teams gain time back in their day and peace of mind knowing they are covered. A dedicated team continuously identifies critical vulnerabilities, rapidly remediates risks, and prioritizes threats and dangers.
  3. Test Your Defenses with Microsoft 365 Business Email Compromise Simulation: Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a critical method cyber criminals use target faculty, students, and administration. One of the primary types of a BEC attack is account compromise, when a cybercriminal gains access to the target’s account and uses it maliciously. Due to a lack of cybersecurity awareness, many attacks are successful and could’ve been avoided in most situations. Testing your defenses, specifically the Microsoft 365 (M365) environment, with an M365 BEC Simulation tool will not only identify how your security stacks up to top tactics used to compromise accounts, but it will also identify where all the gaps are in your protection.
  4. Make Security Awareness a Culture: Your students and employees are the first lines of defense against cybercriminals. They must feel empowered with the knowledge of reporting suspicious activities when they are targeted. Cybersecurity culture is essential to higher and K-12 education resilience to reduce the risk associated with human error. Thus, this culture needs to be a part of a broader organizational culture of daily actions encouraging faculty and students to make mindful decisions that align with educational security policies. A Proactive Security Awareness program does just that. Implementing fully managed security awareness testing and training is proven to reduce the risk posed by the human component.

Cyberattacks in the education sector are a growing trend. Most concerning is that the schools lag in their cybersecurity efforts due to limited budgets, lack of awareness, and more remote students. Fortunately, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and affordable resources to help illuminate these attacks. It is essential to seek out these resources and find experts that can assist with acting as an extension to your security team for 24×7 surveillance. Managing cyber risks becomes easy when everything is in one place from one platform.

ICBA Live 2023: Honolulu, HI

Dates: March 12-16, 2023
Location: Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort – Honolulu, HI
Booth #: 932 (Main Street Foyer next to ThinkTECH)

Join Mark Sangster, Vice President, Chief of Strategy at Adlumin, during his speaking session at ICBA Live 2023 and converse with us at Adlumin’s booth #932, located at the Main Street Foyer next to ThinkTech.

During his speaking session, Sangster will debunk the cyber misconceptions that plague most businesses. You’ll learn how to frame conversations to report on risks rather than threats, define objectives and priorities, allocate resources, and report that demonstrates, not action.

Cybersecurity is not an IT problem to solve, it’s a business risk to manage.

Speaking Session: The Cyber Rosetta Stone: Translating the Ones and Zeroes of Threats to the Dollars and Cents of Risk

Speaker: Mark Sangster, Vice President, Chief of Strategy at Adlumin
Session Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Session Time: 7:00 AM – 7:50 AM HST

For complete event information, visit our ICBA Live event page.

Questions? Contactmarketingevents@adlumin.com

Three Critical Elements for the Perfect Security Operations Mix

Investing in a Security Operations Platform plus Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services enables access to talented, around-the-clock cybersecurity experts, scalability, lower ongoing costs, and shared threat intelligence. This final white paper in our 3-part series details the first steps to building the foundation of your Security Operations Platform and outlines three critical elements to incorporate into your cybersecurity strategy.

According to Gartner, data breaches broke records in 2021, so 88% of executives consider cybersecurity a top threat to their operations rather than a technical IT problem. Organizations must invest in solutions that proactively and continuously protect against threats while offering automated solutions to mitigate the risk of an attack. Technologies and services are often expensive and complex requiring effective management. For this reason, many small-to-medium businesses turn to a Security Operations Platform.

As the threat landscape evolves, compliance regulations follow suit, and the volume of data and emerging technology introduces new obligations and exposures. MDR services utilize organizations’ data by tracking and detecting threat trends across a broad base of monitored customers. The assistance from an extended security team is invaluable, as they manage the software and tools in your security stack and provide 24×7 emergency responses for attacks.

Key takeaways:

  • First steps to building the foundation of a Security Operations Platform
  • Three critical elements to incorporate into your cybersecurity strategy
  • The benefits of MDR services and 360-degree visibility

Adlumin wants to be your guide to educating you on the threats your organization is up against while equipping your IT landscape with the necessary tools.

Download Three Critical Elements for the Perfect Security Operations Mix to get started.

Local-Level Threats: Cybersecurity Strategies for Regional Businesses

Register for Adlumin’s Upcoming Webinar:

Local-Level Threats: Cybersecurity Strategies for Regional Businesses

Date: February 16, 2023
Time: 1:00 PM- 1:30 PM Eastern
Attendee Linkhttps://adlumin.com/webinar/local-level-threats-cybersecurity-strategies-for-regional-businesses/

Securing your infrastructure is a challenge for any business in 2023. Between the uncertainty of the current economic landscape and the difficulty of maintaining on-premise and cloud hybrid environments, cybersecurity teams must factor in a lot of moving parts. For regional businesses, the problems are often exacerbated by less-developed security strategies, limited resources — and a higher volume of cyberattacks. To protect against these digital threats, regional organizations must explore the right cybersecurity solution for their specific needs.

Security solutions that work for an enterprise-scale business are not always what’s best for regional companies. Join cybersecurity experts and enthusiasts from Adlumin and ESG as they uncover threats regional businesses should be paying attention to and outline how to find a Security Operations vendor that fits your architecture. Reserve your spot.

Tune in to learn:

  • What unique security challenges are plaguing regional-level organizations?
  • How do you conduct an internal security audit and pinpoint your Security Operations Platform needs?
  • What differentiates the Adlumin Platform?
  • Why are transparency, MDR Services, and live reporting important?

Adlumin’s Jim Adams and Chris Joe Honored as a 2023 CRN® Channel Chief

By: Brittany Demendi, Corporate Communications Manager

CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has recognized Jim Adams and Chris Joe on its 2023 Channel Chiefs list. This year’s list represents top IT executives responsible for building a robust channel ecosystem. Adams and Joe were selected from the editorial staff based on their record of business innovation and dedication to the partner community.

Adams is the Chief Revenue Officer with over 35 years of experience in IT with a focus on monetizing global partnerships and channel programs and execution. Joe is the Vice President, Channels and Distributions, with over 25 years of experience in the channel industry.

Through Adams’ leadership, the Adlumin Advantage Partner Program includes many partners ranging from MSPs, MSSPs, Value-Added Resellers, and System Integrators, and the company’s growth revenue has increased by 436 percent. Additionally, since joining the Adlumin team, Joe has developed a distribution strategy, including launching a partnership with Ingram Micro, creating and launching a market-leading MSP program, and more.

“Jim and Chris bring years of experience and expertise to the company and have measurable success with expanding channel partner programs,” said Robert Johnston, CEO at Adlumin. “I would like to congratulate both on achieving this accomplishment and making the 2023 CRN Channel Chiefs list; it is very well-deserved.”

To learn more, read the full press release here.

Three Benefits of Deception Technology: The Ultimate Trap

By: Brittany Demendi, Corporate Communications Manager

Like a worm dangling on a fishhook or the cheddar cheese waiting on a mouse trap, deception technology baits cybercriminals in the same way. The technology works as a cybersecurity defense, deploying realistic decoys (apps, files, credentials, files, databases, etc.) in a network alongside real assets acting as lures. Cybercriminals waste their time attempting to infiltrate a worthless network with useless assets, only to be tracked by the organization.

Immediately when a cybercriminal touches a decoy, intel is gathered, and alerts are generated, speeding up incident response time. Deception technology gives organizations a leg up in protecting their IT environment by identifying an activity before it completes the attack mission.

As organizations’ cyber awareness has increased in the past few years, their security and deception technology are taking the spotlight. This blog details three benefits of implementing deception technology, how it works, and where to start.

Benefit 1: Business Risk Awareness

When an organization’s business plans and strategies evolve, so should its security. Deception technology gives insight into the different tactics used by cybercriminals specific to your network, allowing concentrated solutions to be built.

In addition, most antivirus programs or security controls are unaware if your organization is going through a merger or if there was a spike in ransomware attacks within your industry. The benefit of deception technology is that it allows deception measures to be created around that merger or industry-specific risks to lure cybercriminals. This aligns security with business strategy and tightens up perceived risk.

Benefit 2: Decrease in Attack Dwell Time

Deception technology can be key for closing the time gap between the breadcrumbs cybercriminals leave and when the actual attack occurs. And with intellectual property and finances at risk, time to detect and respond are critical. When yet, many solutions do not trigger an alert until an attacker makes key moves, or they cannot provide crucial details like what warning signs they should’ve looked for from the beginning.

Decoys allow security teams to track cybercriminal behavior, identify when there is an attacker within their environment,  and learn what goes on within every phase of an attack. In turn, malicious behavior can be recognized and detected before they disrupt an organization’s virtual environment.

Benefit 3: Increase Threat Detection

Cybercriminals get a false sense of accomplishment when they infiltrate a decoy network. In reality, they are providing metrics and behavior analytics to an organization, ultimately increasing security and making it harder on themselves. Deception technology can cover almost any attack vector and detect virtually any attack, including ransomware, lateral movement, social engineering, man-in-the-middle attacks, and more, in real-time.

Once a cybercriminal is detected within a decoy network, a security team can manipulate the environment based on their knowledge of the attack. For example, they can create situations that force attackers to disclose information about where they are from or what ransomware group they are part of. A security team can also cloud or distort the cybercriminal’s environment by implementing hijacking tools.

Honeypots: The Ultimate Trick and Trap

Like a moth to a flame, cybercriminals cannot resist the perfect decoy network to attack.  There are many different deception technologies, but a good intruder trap to get started with is honeypots. Honeypots can help make the most out of catching a cybercriminal attacking your network. They are modeled after any organization’s digital assets, like servers, networks, or software applications.

Once the cybercriminal is inside, security teams track their movements to understand their motivations and methods better. It is vital for honeypots to contain vulnerabilities, but not too many that are blatantly obvious. Security teams must be strategic because many cybercriminals are advanced in their tactics. If they know they are in a honeypot, some will provide misinformation manipulating the environment, thus reducing efficiency.

A Complement to Threat Hunting

Deception technology, specifically honeypots, is integral to a comprehensive security strategy and plan. Their main goal is to expose vulnerabilities and lure a cybercriminal away from the legitimate target. Organizations also gather essential data and analytics about tactics from inside the decoy. It’s the perfect complement to threat hunting. Threat intelligence professionals proactively search for suspicious activity indicating network or malicious compromise. It is a manual process backed by existing collected network data correlation and automated searches. Deception technology and threat hunting are pieces within an overall comprehensive security strategy. Both take the proactive approach going beyond consistently sitting on the defense. Used in isolation, these pieces will not solely protect an organization, but when a part of a Security Operations Platform, they can further risk prevention for an organization.

Command Visibility

Deception technology is a valuable asset for organizations in their cybersecurity defense. It allows organizations to gain insight into the tactics used by cybercriminals, detect malicious behavior early, create traps and lures, and gather vital data and analytics. Honeypots are an excellent intruder trap while being the perfect complement to threat hunting. When used as part of a comprehensive security strategy, organizations can command security and cyber risk visibility by taking a proactive approach.

Are your Security Defenses Ready?

For more informationcontact one of our cybersecurity experts for a demo to get started.