http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/26229.html

By Jay Heiser
Posted: 16/07/2002 at 18:33 GMT

[SCENE: A small but elegant office. Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" plays
softly in the background. A man in a red power tie sits behind a solid
oak desk, gently rubbing the top of a Montblanc pen across his upper
lip while peering intently at his computer. The early afternoon peace
is broken by heavy footsteps. A highly agitated man wearing a t-shirt
reading "Windows Blows" barges into the office.]

JIM: Hey, Boss!

BOSS: [pained expression] Yes?

JIM: We need to get a honeypot!

BOSS: A what? What do we need a honeywagon for?

JIM: No, not a honeywagon, a honeypot. It's a special computer you put
out on the Internet to attract and catch hackers. We make it easy to
break in, so we're sure to get lots of 'em.

BOSS: I'm not sure I understand. Why would we want to attract more
hackers than we've already got? I thought we were trying to discourage
them.

JIM: That's the nice thing about the honeypot. The hackers go there
and sort of rummage around. Then we watch 'em! [cackle] We'll see
everything they do.

BOSS: Don't we know what hackers do already? They're trying to break
into our e-commerce server, put their girlfriend's naked picture on
our home page, and steal our customers' credit card numbers. Besides,
we get that monthly newsletter with all the details on what the third
world hackers are planning. You know, from that group staffed by all
the ex-government spooks? I know what they are up to.

Besides, we just renewed our half million dollar contract with
IncredibleDEF, and I get an exclusive daily update on the status of
all the third world hackers. They just told me that a gang of Indian
cyberpunks is working together to deface Pakistani web servers. Who
knew? Great material for our risk reports.

JIM: Yeah, that's cool stuff, but if we had a honeypot, we wouldn't
just read about the hackers. We could see 'em ourselves, sorta like a
digital ant farm. We can learn just how they work. When we know what
vulnerabilities they take advantage of, then we'll know what to fix on
our servers.

BOSS: Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to buy a book?

JIM: Well, yeah ... but then one of us would have to read it ...

BOSS: Good point. But I'm still not convinced. I don't want to be the
first one to get one of these honeymucker things. IncredibleDEF says
this gang of teenagers from Trinidad have been performing denial of
service attacks using calypso music. What if the hackers use our
honeypot to launch an attack into someone else's system? I can see the
headlines now, 'Steel drum attack traced to Acronomia Inc. server. CSO
claims it was a hijacked honeydew.'

JIM: Can't happen. Besides, Threelettria Corp. has had one for six
months, and their CSO just got his picture in Wired. (The Boss
silently mouths a 'wow!') I was just talking to a consultant from
Friday, and he said that honeypots are best practice now. All the
leading firms have one. (pause) You know, I'm worried that we might be
losing our competitive edge ... (raises eyebrows)

BOSS: OK, it's starting to make sense to me now. Can you talk to
Friday about doing a feasibility study for us?

JIM: I already did. They said that planning the development,
implementation and operation of a honeypot was one of their core
competencies, so they'll be able to do it for only $50K.

BOSS: Hey, that's reasonable. And once I've spent $50,000 on a
complete plan, I won't have any trouble justifying the hardware,
software, and staff. I'll do the deal with Friday on the golf course
tomorrow. Good save, Jim. Thanks. Oh, and can you have someone from
Marketing Communications come up? I want to talk to them about a press
release.

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