Honeypots mailing list archives

Re: HoneyPot Tools


From: MrDemeanour <mrdemeanour () jackpot uk net>
Date: Sat, 03 Jul 2004 20:43:56 +0100

Lance Spitzner wrote:

Defining/categorizing honeypots is still I think one of its biggest challenges :-0

My view exactly - but isn't that part of the the point? If it were easy to pin down your host based on some kind of behaviour-profile, then you lose. But a network that contains (maybe) real hosts, one or perhaps one or more honey-aware routers, and (who knows?) some kinds of honey-servers, would present a confusing proposition to an attacker.

Suppose a real host were running one or two honey-services, in addition to doing it's regular job? Suppose a real host, with a real job, were mirrored by a virtual host? Suppose an LI honeypot were collaborating with the honey-router, and spoofing its services in such a way that they appeared to be running on one of the real hosts?

I don't know that a Hall Of Mirrors like this is quite what one wants; something a bit more like Kafka's Castle is what's wanted - the visitor is presented with an impossible mess of bureaucracy, truths pretending to be lies, half-truths, and out-and-out lies.

Another literary metaphor, full of lies about lies, might be The Magus, by John Fowles. In the story, the protagonist is sucked into a seductive set-up on a greek island, complete with actors paid to help take him in. Two of these actors are twins - one of them "falls in love" with the protagonist.

I'd like the unwelcome visitor to be unsure when he was talking to a real, live service; when he was talking to a real service that had been set-up as a 'pot, and was being traced in real-time; when he was talking to the shadow of a real, live service, and when he was talking to an actor (or another actor that was the spitting image of the first actor).

In all this drivel, I'm envisaging the network being a live network, and the honey-bits are contrived either to deter or to detect - I'm not really thinking about a completely phony network.

--
Jack.


Current thread: