A honeypot checker is a tool that enables you to identify and track the activities of attackers. It is an important component of your security strategy because it helps to detect and investigate malicious activity without impacting the operation of your real systems or compromising sensitive information. In addition, the activity recorded by a honeypot can help you improve your security policies by highlighting potential weaknesses.
Honeypots are fake services or servers that mimic real ones to lure attackers in and then trap them. The activity that is observed by a honeypot can be used to monitor and analyze an attack, allowing for the detection of malware infections, network vulnerabilities, and other types of attack attempts. The data collected can be used to evaluate a system’s security policies, and also to train your security team on how to respond to attacks and stop them in their tracks.
There are many different types of honeypots available, each designed to mimic a particular service or system. For example, a low interaction honeypot can emulate a USB storage device to lure in malware, or a web server that has been configured to serve up fake data such as documents and photos. This is a great way to test an attacker’s skills and determine whether they have progressed beyond reconnaissance and are on the verge of exploiting a target.
High interaction honeypots can provide more valuable information because they are able to emulate actual systems that can be probed for misconfigurations and other vulnerabilities. They can also be used to capture IoCs and artifacts that are left behind after exploitation, which can be invaluable for forensics and analysis of emerging threats and malware.
Using a honeypot checker can make it much easier to spot tell-tale signs of an attack such as the presence of multiple IP addresses coming from one country, a string of obfuscated commands in the HTTP traffic, or a slow scan of a file share. Taking a few minutes to run this tool can save hours of investigation later, helping you catch an attacker before they have the chance to extract any information from your company’s network.
In a typical corporate environment, attackers are going to have a hard time making headway against your real systems because you have firewalls in place, locked down desktops with anti-virus installed, and your IDS has been trained to only alert on “real” threats. But if you have a few honeypots set up, they will draw the attention of attackers and give your Incident Response team a chance to kick them in the head before they can do any damage. Varonis’ pre-built threat models and custom alerts can be set up to notify your team when a honeypot is tripped, giving them the heads up they need to take action quickly and prevent a real sensitive data compromise. Check out this blog post for more details on setting up a honeypot and tracking activity with Varonis.