What Is a Honeypot Scheme?

The current cybersecurity landscape is littered with more cunning network attacks and brand impersonation attempts than ever before. For modern enterprises, properly anticipating these attacks and learning from these attacks is an essential part of smart business practices. Proactive brand risk intelligence and advanced threat remediation buoy enterprises' reputations, maintain client satisfaction and support company operations. An effective method for protecting the enterprise on all fronts while safely learning about the latest high-risk cybercriminal tactics is to use a honeypot. 

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A honeypot scheme is a digital decoy system that draws attackers into a server where they begin attempting to hack into the enterprise's network or impersonate their brand. However, honeypots are a "safe sandbox" where attackers cannot access any other systems and are designed to identify and analyze the criminal's activity, aims, and specific methods of attack. 

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With a duplicate system, cybersecurity and IT teams can draw attention away from genuine assets while tricking hackers into revealing their attack methods. In this article, technology leaders and department heads will learn unique ways to integrate honeypots and their context-rich insights into their broader security strategy, including how brand protection solutions, such as Doppel's external monitoring, monitor and secure external areas of the digital attack surface. Later on, this blog explores the potential next-level applications of honeypots for advanced threat intelligence, real-time alerts, and comprehensive brand protection measures within an enterprise cybersecurity strategy. 

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For more information on how Doppel safeguards brands and other areas throughout modern enterprises with next-level threat detection, we invite enterprise personnel to learn more about our comprehensive cybersecurity platform.

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Why Honeypots Matter

Honeypots function as decoy servers within the cyber protection toolbelt, "trapping" attackers within the duplicate system where they cannot harm. This duplicated system is supported with strong data analysis and machine learning features. Once an attacker is within the honeypot, they start to use their infiltration or impersonation tactics, as they believe they are in a genuine system holding valuable data or points of network access.

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What cybercriminals don't know is that by employing their tactics within the honeypot, they are showing their hand, demonstrating the strategies they use and the areas they exploit to harm an enterprise. This provides security teams with top-level insights into the efficacy of their security practices using a real-world scenario. This method provides information even richer than even the most diligent penetration tests, which is perfect for deeper threat analysis. With these insights, security personnel can implement stronger brand protections without experiencing a successful social engineering or brand impersonation attack.

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However, technology leaders are familiar with the genuine struggle of effectively allocating limited security resources across the entire enterprise. Implementing proactive protection while remediating when necessary takes up a sizable portion of the enterprise's cybersecurity budget, personnel, and time. Given that reality, cybersecurity and finance leadership can take heart, knowing that the cybersecurity value and business savings gained from honeypots are substantial. 

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Honeypots function as a high-quality "learning space" for uncovering high-risk vulnerabilities. They draw out and isolate genuine threats that cybercriminals are likely to exploit more accurately than internal-only methods, such as penetration testing. 

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Well-deployed honeypots reveal how cybercriminals would have otherwise infiltrated a global organization's database, isolating genuine threats with accuracy - without affecting the enterprise's operations, client base, or protected data. With crucial insights into how an attack would have occurred, security teams can implement those changes without incurring the fatigue or financial ramifications of an actual attack. This reduces the stress on the budget and personnel required for high-intensity remediations that must occur after an incident. 

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For cybersecurity, brand, and customer service professionals seeking additional strategies to prevent social engineering intrusions across the entire attack surface, we have compiled a list of tactics that align well with the insights gained from honeypots.

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Choosing Your Honeypot

In general, there are two categories of honeypots based on the information an enterprise wants to learn: production honeypots and research honeypots. Each produces different types of data. 

Production honeypots are generally simpler, focusing on identifying who, when, and where an infiltrator interacts with the duplicate network. Once entrapped, production honeypots collect key information on the attempted hacker, including the date and time of the intrusion, IP address, traffic volume, and other infiltration-based details. Production honeypots run alongside actual servers and run the same types of features. 

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Research honeypots are slightly more complex as they collect information on how the actual attack was carried out. Much like production honeypots, research honeypots can be deployed both within the internal company network and externally for high-risk brand incidents. Research honeypots identify and analyze how the attack works in the context of other cybersecurity elements, such as which specific vulnerabilities the attacker targets, what their aims might be, whether third-party systems or first-party features are the entry points and whether an attacker is using new or existing technology.

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Traditional honeypot strategies are helpful but require time upfront for isolating servers, simulating the enterprise's features across their suite of offerings, creating vulnerabilities that are enticing yet not overly obvious, and manually analyzing the outcomes. Modern honeypot strategies, such as Doppel's brand protection, utilize external threat intelligence to analyze honeypot data more efficiently while employing machine learning to continuously create more effective brand protection solutions. 

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For brand and technology leaders, this active and continuously improving threat analysis engineers a more prompt and effective method to detect fake domains, stop social engineering threats, and identify fraudulent brand impersonations. For brand leaders new to the cybersecurity space or technology leaders seeking to better position their brand reputation as a cybersecurity priority, we invite you to read our guide on understanding digital risk protection in the brand and social engineering spheres.  

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Applying Honeypots to Modern Security

Honeypots offer value for various enterprise cybersecurity setups. 

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• Internal Production Honeypot: Imagine an enterprise with asynchronous offices around the globe. The enterprise is working on a groundbreaking project and is concerned that a company insider may attempt to access the network to learn about it. By deploying an internal honeypot, the enterprise can lure any unauthorized insiders trying to access the network. With a production honeypot, leadership can identify the IP address and time of access for whoever attempts to access the project's server.
• External Brand Focused Research Honeypot: After several clients call customer service, expressing that an impersonation website has stolen their financial details, the IT team becomes aware of several long-standing duplicitous company schemes. With an external research honeypot, the cybersecurity team monitors why and how the cybercriminals are impersonating the company brand. With strong data analysis, they can identify and stop fake websites, and adjust their brand protection strategy to mitigate future attempts.

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Since honeypots must entrap a cybercriminal to produce valuable insights, there is a common feeling of uncertainty about the return on investment (ROI) of a honeypot. The data collected from a honeypot is powerful and can significantly reduce the risk of a significant breach while preventing what would otherwise be a successful attack that halts the enterprise's operations.

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For a viewpoint into how and where honeypots can help bolster your enterprise's internal and external security posture and sharply reduce operational damages, consider our strategies for countermeasures against deceptive social engineering tactics while utilizing your current security stack.

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Honeypots in Enterprise-Scale Security

Once the efficacy of a honeypot is proven and the necessary teams are on board with using it, the next step is deploying honeypots at scale. By scaling honeypots to the enterprise and integrating advanced threat monitoring, information security (infosec) teams will gain insight into how to protect multiple essential infrastructures, ranging from security information and event management (SIEM) systems to cloud environments and payment platforms. 

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The key to implementing a successful honeypot system for an enterprise is to define honeypot objectives. Said another way, what information does each team want to know, and which systems most need protection backed by real-world insights? Planning ahead enables IT and security teams to scale honeypots in a manner that best aligns with the enterprise's data protection, risk-based, and compliance objectives.

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Deployment Best Practices

When utilizing a honeypot across the internally and externally across the enterprise, here are some essential strategies to keep in mind:

• Employ network segmentation: By isolating the honeypot server from all other systems, it prevents any attackers who have caught on that they are in a honeypot from using it to laterally move into the actual enterprise servers. If an attacker does become wise, with an isolated network, they have nowhere to go.
• Monitor logs in real time: Keeping a close eye on how the honeypot data is captured and which vulnerabilities are exploited allows security personnel to handpick the insights that best match their enterprise environment and needs.
• Define honeypot objectives: Without a clear goal in mind, the level of investment for a honeypot can outweigh its benefits. Measure the cost-benefit outcomes of a honeypot system at scale to ensure that the data gained is both a productive use of resources and ensures a smart business practice.
• Lean into the strengths: Multiple organizations have reported on the value of honeypots. One such example is The SANS Institute in their 2023 Security Operations Survey. The organization reported that honeypots provide the highest ROI among deception cybersecurity methods, with an average annual cost of $15,000-25,000 instead of $50,000-100,000 for comparable solutions. At the enterprise scale, the financial savings and boost to brand impersonation and social engineering protections are massive and illustrate a smart use of limited resources.

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Potential Misconceptions and “Honeypot Trap” Queries

As honeypots are a term not singular to cybersecurity, here is some wider information to know going in:

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• Non-security personnel will likely search for "honeypots" online to learn about them. A  personal care product brand named "Honeypot" has ample online traction with the term. It will be helpful to be proactive and inform team members that, for this space, the focus is on cybersecurity, and the best practice is to search for "honeypot cybersecurity" instead of just "honeypot." 
• The target in a honeypot system is the attacker or infiltrator who will be "caught" within the honeypot. Innocent users are not the target and are unlikely to find their way into them. 

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Returning to using honeypots, the settings for them do not need to be complicated. Similarly, creating a large-scale honeypot system does not need to be expensive to be highly effective. With intentional planning, honeypots can be a smart, high-ROI choice in the cybersecurity and brand protection arsenal. To explore additional emerging tools within that arsenal, we have created a space highlighting innovative AI applications in cybersecurity that complement a honeypot usage approach well.

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Implementing Honeypots in the Enterprise System

Here are some example scenarios for when to use honeypots at enterprise scale:

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• A Fortune 500 organization houses sensitive data across multiple centers that must be safeguarded to meet industry standards. To ensure the data's safety, the company uses a "honeynet," a network of integrated honeypots. By employing this strategy, the Fortune 500 company can gain insight into how an attacker moves laterally from one data center to another. The honeynet is successful, and from the data gleaned, the leaders for each data center simultaneously secure the entire asset network without compromising any information.

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• A CISO has established a robust SIEM alert system but wants to remain vigilant for any potential issues as the company undergoes a merger. The CISO integrates honeypot intelligence with the SIEM alert system. When an unauthorized user attempts to infiltrate the network, the CISO is immediately alerted and promptly adjusts the protections without affecting the database ahead of the merger.

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Modernizing Honeypots with External Threat Detection

Honeypot approaches provide a range of benefits for large enterprises. With a decoy-based strategy, technology leadership simultaneously draws attention away from crucial assets while gathering valuable insights into how a hacker attacks the enterprise's internal servers. However, modern cybersecurity issues extend to brand protection issues outside of the enterprise system. For additional information on how social engineering affects brand security, read our article to explore various types of social engineering threats.

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External digital landscape monitoring, such as Doppel's brand protection suite, assists enterprises by acting as an analogous lure for threats outside the traditional internal network. By combining both strong external brand risk intelligence and internal data-rich decoys, enterprise technology leaders can bridge the gap between the two approaches, proactively exposing lookalike domains, shutting down malicious applications, and uncovering attacker infrastructure.

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Once honeypot infrastructure is deployed at scale, it's time to turn the insights gained into actionable steps for direct brand defense. Here are some practical strategies: 

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• Layering protections: Establish a system that combines the best of honeypot trapping, threat intelligence, and brand risk protection. Once a cybercriminal is isolated in the honeypot server, use the threat intelligence gained from AI/machine learning tools to flag specific activities or types of traffic.
• Plan for alarm signs: Threat intelligence can highlight specific information related to the company's security, such as repeated IP scans on a brand-specific honeypot server or daily views on a purposefully fictitious social media profile. By investigating the point of origin and the exploited vulnerabilities, infosec teams can swiftly update enterprise branded platforms.
• Alert, alert, alert: Integrate SIEMs for real-time alerts to understand what's happening across the broader brand attack surface. This strategy can apply to both internal networks and external brand accounts. By designing this setup for external brand defense, companies have a well-developed toolbox to protect their image and reputation directly.
• Securing the brand: By turning a potential crisis into a valuable opportunity, honeypot systems and Doppel's brand protection help enterprises maintain brand credibility by identifying knockoff domains, shutting down fake social media accounts, and alerting teams to activity that mimics the brand.
• Putting it all together: Imagine the steps to use this layered approach for external brand protection. The honeypot captures brand impersonators, uses threat intelligence to identify how the hacker has attempted to gain access, alerts infosec teams in real-time, employs machine learning to understand why the cybercriminal employed that specific method, and uses external brand risk intelligence to showcase where, when, and how those insights can be applied across the company brand space.

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Utilize Honeypots in your Company with Doppel

Honeypots are a simple, inexpensive, and easily scalable choice for enterprise brand risk intelligence and direct defense. Honeypots can run as internal decoys that entice cybercriminals into revealing their demographic information and providing in-depth strategies on how they attack an enterprise system. Alternatively, they are a high ROI method for capturing and gathering external monitoring data to secure an enterprise across its branded attack surface.

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With the practical insights gained from honeypots and similar tactics, cybersecurity leaders can rest assured that they are making a wise cybersecurity investment, one that will protect their brand now and into the future as new brand platforms constantly emerge.

We invite leaders who want to explore immediate steps for implementing next-level threat detection to read our guide on gaining insights on social engineering attacks for full-spectrum defense.