Honeypots: Tracking Hackers

Expanding Research Applications

Honeypots have traditionally been used as a production mechanism to secure the resources of an organization. They have primarily been used for deceiving attackers, as with DeceptionToolkit, or detecting attacks, as the burglar alarm BackOfficer Friendly. However, the research potential of research honeypots is slowly being realized. Honeypots can be used to learn a great deal about the threats faced in cyberspace. Security research organizations such as Incidents.org and SecurityFocus.com have demonstrated this, using honeypots to capture worms for analysis. The Honeynet Project has demonstrated this with their Forensic Challenge, Reverse Challenge, and “Know Your Enemy” series of whitepapers. As the security ...