Honeydicking 101: The Art of the Honeypot

Posted on Tue 02 September 2025 in Blog

kei-nova@project2501:~$ cat honeydicked.md

Honeydicking 101: The Art of the Honeypot 🍯🦡🐝

env bash -c "$(curl -sL https://github.com/telekom-security/tpotce/raw/master/install.sh)"

Intro: Baiting the Net 🪤

In the underground, not every glowing port is what it seems. Sometimes, the sweetest targets are poisoned wells, carefully crafted to lure in the curious, the reckless, and the malicious. Welcoome to the the wold of honeypots- a.k.a honeydicking.

Just like the mythical sirens luring sailors to the rocks, a honeypot makes an attacker think they've found an open door.. Instead, they've wandered into a controlled simulation were every keystroke is logged, every exploit capatre, and every move studied.

🍯 What is a Honeypot?

At its core, a honeypot is a d ecoy system or service designed to look vulnerable. The goal isn’t to keep attackers out — it’s to invite them in and watch what happens next.

Low-interaction honeypots: Simulate a single service (like SSH or HTTP) to capture simple probes and scans.
High-interaction honeypots: Run real operating systems or apps to allow attackers to fully interact — but under heavy surveillance.
Honeynets: Entire fake networks with multiple services, hosts, and traffic patterns, designed to look alive and juicy

ELI5

Think of a honeypot like a fake cookie jar. It looks real, smells sweet, and hackers think, “Oh tasty, free cookies (servers, databases, passwords)!” But surprise — it’s empty inside, and we’re watching them the whole time.

Enter T-Pot: The Mega-Trap

Most honeypots are a single tool. T-Pot, on the other hand, is the all-in-one honeypot distribution. * Multi-service: Bundles dozens of honeypots — from SSH brute-force traps to full-blown web app bait. * Data Fusion: Everything funnels into the ELK stack. Dashboards like Kibana for real-time analysis. * Research Grade: Perfect for defenders, hobbyists, and threat intel hunbers looking to harvest attack signatures in the wild.

Why Bother? The Value of Honeypotting

So why spin up a honeypot when firewalls, IDS, and EDR already exist? Because honeypots flip the script:

Early warning system – Spot scans, brute-forces, and new attack techniques before they hit your production systems.
Intel collection – Gather real payloads, malware samples, and adversary TTPs straight from the source.
Psychological edge – Waste attacker time, mislead them, and maybe even make them second-guess if every target is a trap.

The Risks of Honeydicking

Honeypots are powerful, but they’re not toys:

Containment – A poorly isolated honeypot could be hijacked and used as a launchpad.
Noise – High-interaction setups will collect a lot of junk data, requiring solid filtering and storage.
Legality – Logging is fine, but actively striking back crosses legal and ethical lines. Stick to passive collection. But don't be afraid to ride that grey line.

Closing: The Hacker’s Mirror

A honeypot isn’t just a tool — it’s a mirror. It reflects the behaviors, mistakes, and creativity of attackers right back at them. Every connection logged is a lesson, every exploit attempt is intel.

Running something like T-Pot isn’t about defense alone — it’s about understanding the threat landscape from the inside out. Think of it as controlled chaos: you open the gates, but you’re the one holding the reins.

So next time you see an attacker celebrating a shell, remember: sometimes the only one getting played is them.

Ghosted in the Shellcode. Kei Nova out.