As cyber attacks become increasingly sophisticated, organizations are turning to deception technology to improve their cybersecurity defenses. Deception technology involves using decoys and honeypots to lure attackers into a false sense of security, allowing organizations to detect and respond to attacks before they can cause damage. In this article, we’ll explore the differences between honeypots and CyberTrap decoys, and how they can be used in cyber deception.
What are Honeypots?
A honeypot is a decoy system that is designed to mimic a real system, application, or network. The purpose of a honeypot is to attract attackers and gather information about their behavior and tactics. Honeypots can be deployed within an organization’s network or in a cloud environment.
Honeypots can be classified into two categories: low-interaction honeypots and high-interaction honeypots. Low-interaction honeypots simulate only a few services or protocols, while high-interaction honeypots simulate an entire system or network.
In general we can say that honeypots are pretty easy to find, identify and avoid by knowledgeable attackers.
What are CyberTrap Decoys?
A decoy is a fake system or application that is designed to lure attackers away from the real target. Just like honeypots, decoys also gather information about the attackers‘ presence in the system and used tactics.
While honeypots simulate or emulate services the decoys are real systems with a real operating system, real services and real software. Plus they do have a monitoring agent which provides deep insights into the system and this way observes the adversary. This is a big difference. The attacker finds a real system and thinks that it belongs to the production systems. This gives the IT security team time to react before the attacker notices that they are already on the radar – therefore keeping data, systems and money safe.
Decoys can be deployed within an organization’s network and in a cloud environment. And as they are real systems additional software can be installed and included in the deception as well.
Which one to choose?
Honeypots offer an easy, quick and cheaper defence option to detect attacks. The disadvantage is that more advanced cyber criminals can identify them in most cases and avoid them in the future.
CyberTrap decoys on the other hand keep attackers busy for a longer period of time while immediately triggering an alarm in the system and observes the hacker. This allows an organization’s security team to react and save valuable time while protecting critical systems.
A few seconds wasted can make the difference if information and money is stolen or lost.
Conclusion
Both honeypots and decoys are part of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy to improve defenses against cyber attacks.
They are valuable tools for cyber deception but serve different purposes.
Honeypots are used to gather intelligence about the presence of attackers, while decoys are used to divert attackers away from real systems or applications and gather information also about the purpose of the attack.
Organizations can use both honeypots and decoys as part of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy to improve their defenses against cyber attacks. By understanding the differences between these two types of deception technology, organizations can choose the approach that best meets their specific cybersecurity needs.
