-: Honeypots and honeynets.
Honeypots and honeynets are used
to attract and trap potential attackers
to counteract any attempts at unauthorized access
to your organization's network.
Now, a honeypot is generally a single computer,
but it could also be a file, a group of files,
or an area of unused IP address space
that might be considered attractive
to a would-be attacker.
A honeynet, on the other hand,
is one or more computers, servers,
or an area of the network.
And often, this is used when a single honeypot is not deemed
to be sufficient for your purposes.
Now, why would we use honeynets and honeypots
in our network?
Well, this is usually used as a form of research,
to try to learn about attackers.
For example, the Honeynet Project
at honeynet.org is a well-known honeynet
that's in use today.
It's used to learn the tools, tactics,
and motives involved in computer and network attacks.
And then they share what they learned
with all of the different organizations out there.
Your organization likely isn't going to put up a honeypot
on its own, unless you're part
of a security operation center for a large company
who's trying to develop better countermeasures.
For example, security researchers at companies
like Microsoft, Google, and Apple might run a honeypot
or a honeynet to try to better be prepared
in the defense of their systems,
and better understand the bad guys' techniques and tactics.
But for most of us,
honeypots and honeynets are just
something we have to memorize for the exam
because we're likely not going to use them ourself.