What is a honeypot? How to improve your IT security. Honeypot is a national security term that now refers to a method of detecting cyber threats. In this video, let's go over what a honeypot is and whether you really need it. Before we begin, be sure to subscribe to Ninja one's IT Video hub for more tech content like this. What is a honeypot? A honeypot is a decoy system or network set up to attract cyber attackers. It looks vulnerable on purpose, offering fake login screens or open ports to lure in malicious bots and hackers. This lets security teams safely study real attacks without risking actual company data, making honeypots valuable tools for both training and defense types of honeypots. Because there are many different types of cyber attacks, there are also many different honeypots you can use. Here are some common ones. Email traps. With this honeypot, the company hides an unused email address in a public asset to attract spam bots. Since only bots should find it. Any emails it receives Reveal phishing tactics, helping analysts enhance employee protection. Spider honeypot, spider traps use fake pages only visible to web crawlers, helping you track their behavior and improve your bot mitigation strategy. Malware honeypot. A malware honeypot imitates an app and its APIs to attract attackers. By letting them attempt to exploit fake flaws, it reveals how real attacks might unfold. Helping improve anti-malware tools and close security gaps. Risks of using a honeypot. Honeypots are useful for spotting threats, but they have limits. They only detect attacks aimed at them, not your whole system. A well-made honeypot can fool attackers by mimicking real systems, but if spotted, it may be ignored or even used against you with fake data, setting up your honeypot. Setting up a honeypot is straightforward, but maintaining it takes careful planning. Start by choosing a cloud platform. Configure the system with your chosen OS and software and decide which events to monitor. Like login attempts or file changes, store logs outside the honeypot to prevent tampering. Place the honeypot outside your internal firewall. Open only the necessary ports and tag the instance for easy identification. During setup, restrict access to your own router or VPN for safe testing. Run a few actions inside the honeypot and check the logs to ensure everything's working. Once verified, put it into action and monitor it closely. Honeypots offer valuable visibility into how real time attacks unfold, however, it provides minimal direct protection for the actual endpoints under attack. For more information, check out our official blog post on honeypots linked in the description below.