Honeypots: Tracking Hackers

How Honeynets Work

Conceptually, Honeynets are a simple mechanism that work on the same principle as a honeypot. You create a resource that has little or no production traffic. Anything sent to the Honeynet is suspect, potentially a probe, scan, or even an attack. Anything sent from a Honeynet implies that it has been compromised— an attacker or tool is launching activity. However, Honeynets take the concept of honeypots one step further: Instead of a single system, a Honeynet is a physical network of multiple systems.

Honeynets are not a product you install or an appliance you drop on your network. Instead, Honeynets are an architecture that builds a highly controlled network, within which you can place any system or application you want. It ...