1 1 00:00:00,731 --> 00:00:01,650 Honeypots. 2 2 00:00:01,650 --> 00:00:04,290 In this lesson, we're going to start talking about honeypots 3 3 00:00:04,290 --> 00:00:05,820 and active defense. 4 4 00:00:05,820 --> 00:00:07,860 Honeypots are probably the most well-known form 5 5 00:00:07,860 --> 00:00:10,620 of active defense, although there are several other types. 6 6 00:00:10,620 --> 00:00:12,120 Now, when we talk about defense, 7 7 00:00:12,120 --> 00:00:13,567 you probably have heard the old saying, 8 8 00:00:13,567 --> 00:00:15,780 "The best defense is a good offense." 9 9 00:00:15,780 --> 00:00:17,070 Now, what does that mean? 10 10 00:00:17,070 --> 00:00:18,870 Well, this was actually a saying from a boxer 11 11 00:00:18,870 --> 00:00:21,270 back in the 1930s named Jack Dempsey. 12 12 00:00:21,270 --> 00:00:23,820 And his idea was if you have a really good offense 13 13 00:00:23,820 --> 00:00:25,110 and you're hitting the other guy over and over 14 14 00:00:25,110 --> 00:00:27,240 and over again, you're going to bloody him up to the point 15 15 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:29,340 where he gets tired and gives up on you. 16 16 00:00:29,340 --> 00:00:31,890 That's the idea of the best defense being a good offense. 17 17 00:00:31,890 --> 00:00:33,960 Now, does that really apply to our networks? 18 18 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:35,850 Well, maybe or maybe not. 19 19 00:00:35,850 --> 00:00:38,700 But in this lesson, we are going to focus on active defense 20 20 00:00:38,700 --> 00:00:40,290 because that is one of the objectives 21 21 00:00:40,290 --> 00:00:42,570 underneath your CYSA+ exam. 22 22 00:00:42,570 --> 00:00:44,160 Now, when we talk about active defense, 23 23 00:00:44,160 --> 00:00:46,650 we're talking about the practice of responding to a threat 24 24 00:00:46,650 --> 00:00:50,010 by destroying or deceiving the threat actor's capabilities. 25 25 00:00:50,010 --> 00:00:51,450 Now, what this really means 26 26 00:00:51,450 --> 00:00:53,700 is that we have an engagement with the adversary. 27 27 00:00:53,700 --> 00:00:55,620 That's what active defense is all about. 28 28 00:00:55,620 --> 00:00:57,660 You're going to hit me, well, I'm going to hit you back 29 29 00:00:57,660 --> 00:00:59,370 or you're going to try breaking into my network, 30 30 00:00:59,370 --> 00:01:00,900 I'm going to let you in but I'm going to put you 31 31 00:01:00,900 --> 00:01:02,640 in this other area that's a decoy. 32 32 00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:04,650 That's the idea of active defense. 33 33 00:01:04,650 --> 00:01:06,900 For instance, I might want to set up something 34 34 00:01:06,900 --> 00:01:08,850 that is essentially bait for an attacker. 35 35 00:01:08,850 --> 00:01:11,310 I set up an area of my network that is exposed 36 36 00:01:11,310 --> 00:01:13,500 to the internet and I don't patch my servers 37 37 00:01:13,500 --> 00:01:15,360 and I put false information on that stuff. 38 38 00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:18,090 That all looks like a very attractive target to an attacker. 39 39 00:01:18,090 --> 00:01:21,360 And so they may go and grab that. And I'm luring them in. 40 40 00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:24,540 Well, that concept is actually called a honeypot. 41 41 00:01:24,540 --> 00:01:27,120 A honeypot is essentially a host or a server 42 42 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:29,340 that is set up with the purpose of luring attackers 43 43 00:01:29,340 --> 00:01:31,050 away from your actual network components 44 44 00:01:31,050 --> 00:01:33,360 that you care about and instead allowing them 45 45 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:35,100 to start attacking this other area. 46 46 00:01:35,100 --> 00:01:36,960 When they do this, it allows you to discover 47 47 00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:38,880 attack strategies and weaknesses 48 48 00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:40,620 in different security configurations 49 49 00:01:40,620 --> 00:01:42,420 and learn from their attack methods 50 50 00:01:42,420 --> 00:01:44,670 because as you watch them doing things, you're going to see, 51 51 00:01:44,670 --> 00:01:47,160 oh, when they first break in, then they try to pivot 52 52 00:01:47,160 --> 00:01:48,870 or then they try to escalate privileges 53 53 00:01:48,870 --> 00:01:50,940 or then they try to do X, Y, Z. 54 54 00:01:50,940 --> 00:01:52,440 And by being able to gather that information, 55 55 00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:54,030 you can learn about your adversary. 56 56 00:01:54,030 --> 00:01:56,220 Now, in addition to a honeypot, which is a single host 57 57 00:01:56,220 --> 00:01:58,440 or server, you might have a honeynet. 58 58 00:01:58,440 --> 00:02:00,630 And this is an entire network that's set up to entice 59 59 00:02:00,630 --> 00:02:02,400 an attacker and it looks really juicy, 60 60 00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:04,200 like it's a real company's network. 61 61 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:05,700 Now, often these honeynets are set up 62 62 00:02:05,700 --> 00:02:07,350 by internet security companies 63 63 00:02:07,350 --> 00:02:08,820 because they want to use that to allow 64 64 00:02:08,820 --> 00:02:11,940 their security teams to analyze an attacker's behavior. 65 65 00:02:11,940 --> 00:02:13,800 Now, what's a good example of this? 66 66 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:14,947 Let's say I went ahead and said, 67 67 00:02:14,947 --> 00:02:16,980 "I have this wonderful database." 68 68 00:02:16,980 --> 00:02:18,540 So then set up a database server. 69 69 00:02:18,540 --> 00:02:21,300 I'm going to put some fake information in the database server 70 70 00:02:21,300 --> 00:02:23,370 and I'm going to expose it to the internet. 71 71 00:02:23,370 --> 00:02:26,160 Now, inside of that database, I have a lot of meaningless 72 72 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:29,010 or unhelpful information but the attacker doesn't know that. 73 73 00:02:29,010 --> 00:02:30,630 They just see there's a database with a lot 74 74 00:02:30,630 --> 00:02:31,950 of important financial records 75 75 00:02:31,950 --> 00:02:33,390 because that's what I made it look like. 76 76 00:02:33,390 --> 00:02:35,340 And so as they go in there and they start attacking 77 77 00:02:35,340 --> 00:02:37,710 that database and they start getting into there, 78 78 00:02:37,710 --> 00:02:39,780 I can start seeing what they're doing and figure out 79 79 00:02:39,780 --> 00:02:42,900 what their techniques are and then use that to better harden 80 80 00:02:42,900 --> 00:02:45,480 the rest of my network against that type of an attack. 81 81 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:48,210 That's the idea of using a honeypot or a honeynet. 82 82 00:02:48,210 --> 00:02:50,370 Now, one of the reasons why security researchers 83 83 00:02:50,370 --> 00:02:53,580 set up these big honeynets is to learn about new techniques 84 84 00:02:53,580 --> 00:02:54,930 because when they learn about techniques, 85 85 00:02:54,930 --> 00:02:57,570 they can try to attribute them back to the actor. 86 86 00:02:57,570 --> 00:02:58,800 When we talk about attribution, 87 87 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:00,960 we're talking about the ability to do identification 88 88 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:03,630 and publication of an attacker's methods, techniques, 89 89 00:03:03,630 --> 00:03:06,270 and tactics as useful threat intelligence. 90 90 00:03:06,270 --> 00:03:07,950 For instance, if you look at FireEye, 91 91 00:03:07,950 --> 00:03:09,570 they do this all the time. 92 92 00:03:09,570 --> 00:03:12,270 You can go look in a report on a APT 28 for instance 93 93 00:03:12,270 --> 00:03:14,640 and they'll tell you they believe this is attributed 94 94 00:03:14,640 --> 00:03:16,830 to APT 28, these types of malware 95 95 00:03:16,830 --> 00:03:18,450 and these are the common techniques they use 96 96 00:03:18,450 --> 00:03:20,220 and these are the common tactics they use 97 97 00:03:20,220 --> 00:03:21,360 and this is who we think they are. 98 98 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:23,760 We think they are part of the Russian Federation 99 99 00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:26,040 or we think they are part of China or we think they are part 100 100 00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:28,170 of the US or whoever it is they think they are. 101 101 00:03:28,170 --> 00:03:30,060 That is what attribution does. 102 102 00:03:30,060 --> 00:03:31,560 Now, in addition to dealing with things 103 103 00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:33,990 like honeynets and honeypots and attribution, 104 104 00:03:33,990 --> 00:03:37,080 we also can do other strategies like annoyance strategies. 105 105 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:38,970 Now, annoyance strategies often will rely 106 106 00:03:38,970 --> 00:03:40,830 on obfuscation techniques. 107 107 00:03:40,830 --> 00:03:42,660 These are things where we're basically trying to annoy 108 108 00:03:42,660 --> 00:03:44,610 our attacker and waste their time. 109 109 00:03:44,610 --> 00:03:47,340 So for instance, we might put in bogus DNS entries 110 110 00:03:47,340 --> 00:03:48,750 so when they look at our DNS records, 111 111 00:03:48,750 --> 00:03:51,300 they see that we have a mail server and a SharePoint server 112 112 00:03:51,300 --> 00:03:53,190 and a file server and a web server. 113 113 00:03:53,190 --> 00:03:54,990 And we may not have any of those servers up 114 114 00:03:54,990 --> 00:03:56,490 but we can give bogus DNS entries 115 115 00:03:56,490 --> 00:03:57,780 so they think there's something else there 116 116 00:03:57,780 --> 00:03:59,760 and so they'll waste their time trying to find it. 117 117 00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:01,320 Then we can also have things like web servers 118 118 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:02,550 with decoy directories. 119 119 00:04:02,550 --> 00:04:03,720 So I have a web server up 120 120 00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:05,310 and I have all my juicy information 121 121 00:04:05,310 --> 00:04:07,260 in a file called Confidential. 122 122 00:04:07,260 --> 00:04:08,730 No, I don't because I don't want somebody 123 123 00:04:08,730 --> 00:04:09,930 to see that 'cause they see confidential, 124 124 00:04:09,930 --> 00:04:11,520 they're going to try to get into it, right? 125 125 00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:14,160 But I might put decoy directories like confidential, 126 126 00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:16,620 important, financial, and that way attackers 127 127 00:04:16,620 --> 00:04:18,630 might try to go for those and waste their time 128 128 00:04:18,630 --> 00:04:19,800 'cause if they're wasting their time on stuff 129 129 00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:21,810 I don't care about, hopefully they're not using their time 130 130 00:04:21,810 --> 00:04:23,790 against stuff I actually do care about. 131 131 00:04:23,790 --> 00:04:24,720 And then the other thing we can do 132 132 00:04:24,720 --> 00:04:26,550 is we can use port triggering and spoofing. 133 133 00:04:26,550 --> 00:04:28,200 There's a lot of techniques out there 134 134 00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:31,080 where when you see traffic come in on port X, 135 135 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:32,610 have this action occur. 136 136 00:04:32,610 --> 00:04:35,250 And so you might have something like they connect on port 25 137 137 00:04:35,250 --> 00:04:37,170 to try to get into your SMTP server 138 138 00:04:37,170 --> 00:04:39,150 and you're not really running an SMTP server. 139 139 00:04:39,150 --> 00:04:41,340 Instead, you're going to send that over to port 80 140 140 00:04:41,340 --> 00:04:42,780 and give them some other kind of message back. 141 141 00:04:42,780 --> 00:04:44,670 So again, you're wasting their time. 142 142 00:04:44,670 --> 00:04:47,790 Now, another thing you can do is what's known as hack back. 143 143 00:04:47,790 --> 00:04:50,370 And this is something I don't really encourage you to do. 144 144 00:04:50,370 --> 00:04:52,860 Most organizations are not going to allow you to do hack back 145 145 00:04:52,860 --> 00:04:55,530 unless you work for maybe a three-letter agency 146 146 00:04:55,530 --> 00:04:58,320 or a military component or some other nation-state 147 147 00:04:58,320 --> 00:04:59,550 because when you're hacking back, 148 148 00:04:59,550 --> 00:05:01,890 you are conducting offensive attacks. 149 149 00:05:01,890 --> 00:05:03,750 Hack back is essentially using offensive 150 150 00:05:03,750 --> 00:05:06,510 or counterattacking techniques to identify the attacker 151 151 00:05:06,510 --> 00:05:08,430 and degrade their capabilities. 152 152 00:05:08,430 --> 00:05:10,710 The idea here with hack back is maybe you have somebody 153 153 00:05:10,710 --> 00:05:12,900 who is attacking your network and you identify 154 154 00:05:12,900 --> 00:05:16,380 that their command and control is at this particular IP. 155 155 00:05:16,380 --> 00:05:18,240 Well, you can start doing a denial of service 156 156 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:20,310 against their IP to get them to stop 157 157 00:05:20,310 --> 00:05:21,900 doing the attack against you. 158 158 00:05:21,900 --> 00:05:23,820 That's the idea of a hack back. 159 159 00:05:23,820 --> 00:05:26,100 Now, can you do this legally? 160 160 00:05:26,100 --> 00:05:29,580 Mm, maybe, it depends where you live because these things 161 161 00:05:29,580 --> 00:05:32,190 all are in different laws based on the city, the state, 162 162 00:05:32,190 --> 00:05:34,800 the country, or the region of the world that you live in. 163 163 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:36,960 And so you have to look into that because there are many 164 164 00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:38,850 legal and reputational implications 165 165 00:05:38,850 --> 00:05:40,620 that you have to consider and mitigate 166 166 00:05:40,620 --> 00:05:43,080 before you can use some of these active defense strategies, 167 167 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:44,910 especially hack back. 168 168 00:05:44,910 --> 00:05:47,970 For instance, hack back is considered an offensive maneuver. 169 169 00:05:47,970 --> 00:05:50,250 As I said, you are attacking somebody. 170 170 00:05:50,250 --> 00:05:52,770 So in the United States, you could actually go to jail 171 171 00:05:52,770 --> 00:05:54,870 for that because you are breaking the law. 172 172 00:05:54,870 --> 00:05:56,520 It is illegal to do hacking. 173 173 00:05:56,520 --> 00:05:58,320 And so if you are hacking back against somebody 174 174 00:05:58,320 --> 00:06:00,090 who is hacking you, that doesn't make 175 175 00:06:00,090 --> 00:06:01,260 two wrongs make a right here. 176 176 00:06:01,260 --> 00:06:02,700 You could still go to jail for that. 177 177 00:06:02,700 --> 00:06:03,810 So keep that in mind. 178 178 00:06:03,810 --> 00:06:06,510 Remember where you are and the laws in your area 179 179 00:06:06,510 --> 00:06:09,270 and the laws of the server that you're actually attacking 180 180 00:06:09,270 --> 00:06:11,190 because just 'cause you're in the United States, 181 181 00:06:11,190 --> 00:06:13,080 that server may be someplace else 182 182 00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:15,600 and then it's affected by those laws and regulations. 183 183 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:18,420 So again, the best practice is really not to do hack back. 184 184 00:06:18,420 --> 00:06:19,980 But again, it is one of those things that's covered 185 185 00:06:19,980 --> 00:06:22,403 in your textbook so I wanted to bring it up here.