International Conflict and Cyberspace Superiority: Theory and Practice by William D. Bryant

Author:William D. Bryant [Bryant, William D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Strategy, General, Military, Political Science, History, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9781317420378
Google: _ptGCgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 26408045
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-07-30T10:14:36+00:00

Honey Nets

The seventh defensive block that a defender can utilize to keep an attacker from attaining cyberspace superiority is a honey net. A honey net diverts attackers into a false network full of whatever the defender wants the attacker to see. If a cyberspace attacker is attempting to break into a system and the defenders know it, they can divert him into a false network. If you block the attacker, there is nothing preventing him from trying again using a different access that the defender might miss. If the defender instead diverts the attacker but provides him with false information, that can be far more effective. Something similar to this allegedly happened in the early 1980s when a spy provided information that the Soviet Union was planning secretly to acquire gas pipeline technology. Instead of blocking the sale, the U.S. quietly altered the computer code that eventually led to, “the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space.”86 Defenders can do much the same thing in cyberspace. Once a defender captures an attacker in a honey net, the defender can keep the attacker busy with false information, examine attack patterns and techniques, or whatever is most useful. One of the most useful techniques for a defender is instilling doubt in the mind of the attacker.

Introducing doubt into the mind of an attacker through a honey net can affect the attacker’s connection of cyberspace means and ways in other cyberspace attacks as well. A defender does not have to falsify everything; successfully falsifying one piece of information can make the attacker doubt everything else he got as well. One way of accomplishing this increased doubt is through a defender falsifying Battle Damage Assessment (BDA.) It is normally difficult for an attacker to understand how effective his attacks have been; a honey net can make it even worse. A defender can use a honey net to make it look like an attack has been successful, but then suddenly turn the system back on to ambush the attacker’s forces at the most opportune time.87 Tricking the enemy this way once, will also have the effect of making the enemy very reluctant to trust any future cyberspace BDA. This potential for false BDA is why airmen are generally not very enthusiastic when a cyberspace warrior tells them they are “pretty sure” the surface to air missile system they are going to fly over has been disabled. The tendency of warfighters is to put a bomb on it anyway, “just in case,” which diminishes the utility of the cyberspace attack. Honey nets are powerful tools for defenders in cyberspace, but there are some even more powerful techniques taken from the attackers themselves.

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