Honeypots: Tracking Hackers

The Lure of Honeypots

Since I first heard about the concept, I’ve been fascinated with honeypot technologies. A honeypot is very different from most traditional security mechanisms. It’s a security resource whose value lies in being probed, attacked, or compromised. The idea of building and deploying a computer meant to be hacked has an aura of mystery and excitement to it. The first time I learned about honeypots I was working as a system administrator for a Chicago-based consulting company. Late one night I was working with several fellow employees on rebuilding our file server, which kept crashing due to hard drive failure. Making conversation at that late hour, one of our senior administrators mentioned the idea of honeypots. New to the ...