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Open-Source Tool Aimed At Propelling Honeypots Into the Mainstream
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RetiredUser
RetiredUser,
 User Rank: Ninja
6/19/2014 | 11:54:50 PM
ENISA and Digital Traps via Honeypots
A couple years ago ENISA had a great report about how to use honeypots as digital traps for cyber criminals.

The Executive Director of ENISA Professor Udo Helmbrecht commented:

"Honeypots offer a powerful tool for CERTs to gather threat intelligence without any impact on the production infrastructure. Correctly deployed, honeypots offer considerable benefits for CERTs; malicious activity in a CERT's constituency can be tracked to provide early warning of malware infections, new exploits, vulnerabilities and malware behaviour, as well as give an opportunity to learn about attacker tactics. Therefore, if the CERTs in Europe recognise honeypots better as a tasty option, they could better defend their constituencies' assets."

I like how they think...
Kelly Jackson Higgins
Kelly Jackson Higgins,
 User Rank: Strategist
6/20/2014 | 6:43:50 AM
Re: ENISA and Digital Traps via Honeypots
Honeypots have been around for a long time. It will be interesting to see if they indeed become a more common tool for enterprises (mainly large ones, of course). As researchers have found and demonstrated over the years, you can glean a lot of powerful information about attackers/attacks from a honeypot.
RetiredUser
RetiredUser,
 User Rank: Ninja
6/20/2014 | 7:20:26 AM
Re: ENISA and Digital Traps via Honeypots
Between 2003 and roughly 2008 honeypots were the topic of many legal arguments whether someone implementing the technology could actually be prosecuted for using it, or be sued by a hacker caught in the trap.  The debate still rages, but it was particularly hot in the early days since 9/11 was a recent event and many laws were bending and shifting.

When the FBI or a similar agency uses honeypots, it's OK (see United States v. Ivanov), but be careful if you are a private business or an everyday citizen.  After all, it can be entrapment and a violation of privacy, technically.  I'd review SANS resources for recommendations on avoiding prosecution, which include anything from proper banner setup on systems to documentation, and proving your honeypot is a closed loop, preventing hackers from jumping off from there to other systems.

In other words, when you shoot the intruder, make sure you can justify the trail of jewelry that went up your lawn and through the open door (or minimally secured) to your house... 
Randy Naramore
Randy Naramore,
 User Rank: Ninja
6/20/2014 | 11:17:57 AM
Re: ENISA and Digital Traps via Honeypots
If done correctly, honeypots are a very useful tool to gather information about attackers. Malware is often left on them, this can be useful in determining how attacks will happen in the future.
Marilyn Cohodas
Marilyn Cohodas,
 User Rank: Strategist
6/20/2014 | 1:07:46 PM
Low risk , no cost
This tool sounds like a perfect combination for  budget-strapped security teams!
Randy Naramore
Randy Naramore,
 User Rank: Ninja
6/20/2014 | 3:50:17 PM
Re: Low risk , no cost
Very Good for the bottom line and in today's climate that is all that really matters.
Brian Kellogg
Brian Kellogg,
 User Rank: Apprentice
9/23/2014 | 10:25:13 PM
Re: ENISA and Digital Traps via Honeypots
I have to say that I'm not sure why some say honey pots pose too much of a risk to your network.  In large enough businesses you will be forced to try and protect antiquated software with unpatched vulnerabilities until such a time the business can migrate off of that software.  Vulnerabilities will always exist and a Honey Pot will help in identifying the threats on your internal network.  I think one thing we've learned over the last few years is that we can't trust our own internal networks.  Permimeter security just isn't as important as it used to be.  Getting behind the FW/IDS or whatever is a seemingly trivial hurdle for APTs.  Honey pots are a key part of the detection/identification part of a defense in depth security program IMHO.
theb0x
theb0x,
 User Rank: Ninja
6/21/2014 | 2:34:16 PM
Honeypots: High risk, High cost.
It is a very bad idea and not common practice to deploy honeypots in a production enviroment. Honeypots are great for obtaining intelligence on what types of attacks vectors are being utilized against an infrastructure by simulating vulnerabilities in a system. However, placing a honeypot on a production network can and will expose you to more risk. More risk than just attracting attention from hackers, worms, the NSA, etc. Just because the system is simulating known vulnerabilities does not mean the honeypot or system hosting the honeypot is not actually vulnerable itself. I know it's a double negative. But the fact of the matter is that honeypots CAN be compromised by REAL vulnerabilities and used against your company to aid in further attacks or breach of data.

Yes there are many opensource and free honeypots out there but keep in mind the high cost operating, maintaining, and hosting of the honeypot network. Honeypots can and will be broken. Remember, you are just asking to be attacked so in no way should this be operating within the same subnet of your ISP. Plan on paying for 2 seperate ISPs.

 
Robert McDougal
Robert McDougal,
 User Rank: Ninja
6/22/2014 | 1:27:59 PM
Re: Honeypots: High risk, High cost.
I second this notion.  Honeypots should only be deployed in a VLAN completely segregated from all other production or for that matter non-production environments.  
kd10
kd10,
 User Rank: Apprentice
6/25/2014 | 3:24:48 AM
Honeypot as a tool to identify and find the malware
In many cases you already have infected assets inside your organization and there are not many good tools that can find these infected assets.

A good Honeypot will halp you find the infected assets. Whether you take the attacker to court or not is another subject, but first you want to protect yourself and find the infected asset.

Check www.topspinsec.com. 


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