Honeypots: Tracking Hackers

"The text is comprehensive, an honest survey of every honeypot technology I had ever heard of and a number I read about for the first time."
--Stephen Northcutt, The SANS Institute

"One of the great byproducts of Lance's work with honeypots and honeynets is that he's helped give us a much clearer picture of the hacker in action."
--From the Foreword by Marcus J. Ranum

"From the basics of shrink-wrapped honeypots that catch script kiddies to the detailed architectures of next-generation honeynets for trapping more sophisticated bad guys, this book covers it all....This book really delivers new information and insight about one of the most compelling information security technologies today."
--Ed Skoudis, author of Counter Hack, SANS instructor, and Vice President of Security Strategy for Predictive Systems

Honeypots are unique technological systems specifically designed to be probed, attacked, or compromised by an online attacker. Implementing a honeypot provides you with an unprecedented ability to take the offensive against hackers. Whether used as simple "burglar alarms," incident response systems, or tools for gathering information about hacker motives and tactics, honeypots can add serious firepower to your security arsenal.

Honeypots: Tracking Hackers is the ultimate guide to this rapidly growing, cutting-edge technology. The book starts with a basic examination of honeypots and the different roles they can play, and then moves on to in-depth explorations of six specific kinds of real-world honeypots: BackOfficer Friendly, Specter™, Honeyd, Homemade honeypots, ManTrap®, and Honeynets.

Honeypots also includes a chapter dedicated to legal issues surrounding honeypot use. Written with the guidance of three legal experts, this section explores issues of privacy, entrapment, and liability. The book also provides an overview of the Fourth Amendment, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Wiretap Act, and the Pen/Trap Statute, with an emphasis on how each applies to honeypots.

With this book you will gain an understanding of honeypot concepts and architecture, as well as the skills to deploy the best honeypot solutions for your environment. You will arm yourself with the expertise needed to track attackers and learn about them on your own. Security professionals, researchers, law enforcement agents, and members of the intelligence and military communities will find this book indispensable.

0321108957B08282002

Spitzner defines the various types of "honeypots" that are used to emulate security breeches on computer networks, allowing system administrators to collect and analyze information on hackers who step into the trap. Spitzner, a senior security architect for Sun Microsystems, examines methods for honeypot deployment and addresses legal concerns about the rapidly growing technology that takes the offensive against computer crime. The included CD-ROM contains source code, data captures from actual attacks, and white papers. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Lance Spitzner is a senior security architect for Sun Microsystems, Inc., and an acknowledged authority in security and honeypot research. He is a developer, the moderator of the honeypots mailing list, and an instructor for the SANS honeypot course. He is also the founder of the Honeynet Project, a nonprofit group of thirty security professionals dedicated to Honeynet research and learning the tools, tactics, and motives of blackhats and sharing their lessons learned. Lance has presented data on honeypot technologies to organizations such as the Pentagon, the FBI Academy, the Naval War College, the National Security Agency, West Point, SANS, CanSecWest, and Black Hat Briefings.