Know Your Enemy : Honeynets What a Honeynet

Over the past several years the Honeynet Project has been dedicated to learning the tools, tactics, and motives of the blackhat community and sharing the lessons learned. The primary tool used to gather this information is the Honeynet. The purpose of this paper is to discuss what a Honeynet is, its value, how it works, and the risks/issues involved. It is hoped that the security community can use the techniques discussed here to learn for themselves about the blackhat community. It is also hoped that the security community can take the concepts and techniques discussed here and improve them, thereby improving the effectiveness of Honeynets and our ability to learn more about the enemy. However, we want to be sure that organizations are also aware of the many risks and issues involved with a Honeynet.