Re: Honeypot detection and countermeasures

From: Gerardo Richarte (gera_at_corest.com)
Date: 06/24/03

  • Next message: Henry O. Farad: "Re: Honeypot detection and countermeasures"
    Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 18:00:33 -0300
    To: pen-test@securityfocus.com
    
    

    Larry Colen wrote:

    > I'm doing some research on honeypot detection, and preventing
    > honeypots from being detected. I'd greatly appreciate some feedback
    > from pen-testers on the following issues:

        I find this an interesting subject.

        IMHO, when somebody is paying you/me to do a pen-test he's not
    only trying to find what hosts can be hacked into, but instead he's willing
    to test the security of the complete organization, and here I'm being, I
    think, a
    little more open than most people. The whole system includes not only
    servers and networks, but also (oh well... this is not new) people,
    stablished
    trust relationships, etc.

        If there is a honeypot in place, or NIDS or firewall or whatever
    security
    appliance or policy. I would expect my client to try to find how usefull
    this
    tools are for securing the organization. If I hack into a honeypot, I would
    report it back, and I would expect somebody from the security team to
    realize I'm hacking into the honeypot (or looking at NIDS or firewalls
    alerts).
    If nobody reacts to the alerts, well... although I hacked into a honeypot,
    I could say I found a security flaw in the organization, because one of the
    countermeassures was not effective.

        So, to wrap up this too-long mail, if there is a honeypot in the
    net, I would
    try to avoid hacking into it, and do everything a hacker would do to
    detect it,
    because I'm being paid to tell my client how vulnerable the organization
    would
    be to a real attack, and well... I tend to think attackers are as smart
    as I can
    be when emulating them as part of a pen-test.

        All this said, of course the client an choose to ask you not to
    target honeypots,
    or can just tell you what IPs are honeypots, but this would be changing
    the attacker
    profile, either to a "script kiddie", who will not be carefull with
    honeypots, or to
    an advanced attacker, who will not target honeypots at all... for
    example...

        erm... yeah

        gera

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Latest attack techniques.

    You're a pen tester, but is google.com still your R&D team? Now you can get
    trustworthy commercial-grade exploits and the latest techniques from a
    world-class research group.

    Visit us at: www.coresecurity.com/promos/sf_ept1
    or call 617-399-6980
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


  • Next message: Henry O. Farad: "Re: Honeypot detection and countermeasures"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: Connection attempts (& active ids)
      ... > great publicity and observed security. ... is a "best practice" for everyone concerned with security to build honeypots? ... honeypot is harder than building a secure "legit" machine, ... If you want "great publicity" to justify yourself to management, ...
      (FreeBSD-Security)
    • [Full-Disclosure] @(#)Mordred Labs security notice - exploring the honeypot(s) in the wild
      ... This is a second part of the security notice devoted to security companies. ... Then why its called "Exploring the honeypots in the wild"? ... As a normal course of their research, the ISS X-Force™ places servers on ... the format for vulnerabilities is: ...
      (Full-Disclosure)
    • [Full-Disclosure] @(#)Mordred Labs security notice - exploring the honeypot(s) in the wild
      ... This is a second part of the security notice devoted to security companies. ... Then why its called "Exploring the honeypots in the wild"? ... As a normal course of their research, the ISS X-Force™ places servers on ... the format for vulnerabilities is: ...
      (Full-Disclosure)
    • [Full-Disclosure] [Resend] @(#)Mordred Labs security notice - exploring the honeypot(s) in the wild
      ... This is a second part of the security notice devoted to security companies. ... Then why its called "Exploring the honeypots in the wild"? ... As a normal course of their research, the ISS X-Force places servers on the ... the format for vulnerabilities is: ...
      (Full-Disclosure)
    • Re: Intro To Hacking
      ... I use the term advanced in the context applied to the general area of security ... security should NOT be operating honeypots. ... concept in all fields of knowledge: you must learn the fundamental concepts ...
      (Security-Basics)