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Utilizing Honey Pots And Tracers To Enhance Cyber Defense Strategies

Jan 21, 2001 •

Anthony Pell

1 min read

Topics Covered

intrusion detection cyber defense attack analysis honey pot tracer

Two hot new weapons are "honey pots" and tracers. A honey pot is a fake server set up to trap the unwitting intruder. Once inside, an alarm is tripped and the hacker's every keystroke, method of entry and manner of attack . . . Two hot new weapons are "honey pots" and tracers. A honey pot is a fake server set up to trap the unwitting intruder. Once inside, an alarm is tripped and the hacker's every keystroke, method of entry and manner of attack is covertly scrutinized. Tracers are surveillance algorithms powerful enough to follow a hacker's tangled itinerary back to its origin, whether an Internet service provider or a specific Internet Protocol address.

The notion of honey pots has been around for decades but never caught on because a good decoy server was too labor-intensive to set up, and the information in it quickly became stale. An alert hacker would quickly smell a ruse.