According to a report from many cybersecurity ventures, cybercrime will cost USD 10.5 trillion annually, around the globe which is a 15% rise in number from USD 3 trillion in 2015. To put things under control, various forms of research have led to the inventions of various methods and technologies to control cyber crimes which include both orthodox prevention-based methods like anti-viruses and anti-malware, and present-day technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Walking into the present day scenario, deception technologies are acting as a strong offense against cybercrime. Unlike traditional methods which detect and eradicate the threat, deception technology comes up with a whole new working and has its own benefits. The main work of deception technology is to prevent a cybercrime when a hacker has managed to crack into a network. It works by laying traps and decoys that mimic the legitimate and valuable assets for which the attack has been done. These decoys can work both in a real and virtual environment and are designed to let the attacker think that the ball is in their court and can manipulate data but, guess! Who gets the last laugh? Once the decoy has been attacked, a notification will be broadcasted to the server along with the attack vectors used by the cybercriminal, which will be used to handle and mitigate the threat. Moreover, deception technology gives the user an edge over the attacker by providing it extra time to understand the attacker’s motive of the attack and then plan and deploy decoys in the system accordingly. The deception system also provides full coverage to your system which includes networks, directories, endpoint systems, cloud storage and databases, and application. Every environment requires varying parameters of security, so your deception system analyzes each environment thoroughly, also covers newly added endpoints and users in the network, and thus deploy decoys according to environment requisites.
Seminal Patent -
Patent No.- US10333976B1 (Open source intelligence deceptions)
Current Assignee - Illusive Networks Ltd
Grant Date - 2019-06-25
The patent describes a system that detects an intrusion when an attacker attacks or already has breached the system. The system first scans the network for the sources which are connected to the enterprise network and has data related to the enterprise, which is available publicly. The enterprise network comprises switches and routers, and a firewall located within a gateway between the enterprise network and the Internet. Based on the scan, files and texts are generated by replacing placeholders within template files with deceptive information. After this, the generated files and texts are planted within the network for the internet sources which were discovered while scanning.
The system comprises an open-source intelligence discoverer (OSINT) within an enterprise network which scans for public open-source Internet resources outside of the enterprise network to discover open-source Internet resources that contain data related to the enterprise that is publicly available online. The system also has an OSINT replacer, which generates the deceptive files by replacing placeholders within template files with deceptive information, based on the data discovered by OSINT discoverer. The placeholders described here the true data which is already in the enterprise network. After this, an OSINT distributor plant the deceptive files generated by the OSNIT replacer within public open-source Internet resources outside of the enterprise network, which was discovered by said OSINT discoverer. If an attack occurs or already intruded into the network including those deceptive files and texts, an alert will be sent to the administrator about the intrusion.
Why Use Deception Technology?
The attacking vectors of cybercriminal attacks are continuously changing and thus deception technology plays an important role in knowing the playground of attackers. With this, deception technologies provide various other advantages which are listed below:-
1. Increased Threat Detection
Deception technology helps attackers give a false sense of belief that they had a hold over the network and on the contrary, detection of attacks over mimic files gives information about the attack metrics and gives the network and its operators to get a particular solution for the threat and also helps in designing the solution that same kind of attacks can be stopped further in future by learning from every attack through attack vectors.
2. Business Risk Awareness
Most business networks are not aware of the continuously evolving threats which can strike any network and can do severe damages to the network. Deception technology lets you know about the different strategies used by various attackers and build a concrete solution about the vulnerabilities in their system and network founded by the attack metrics collected through decoy file assets.
3. Wide Range Of Application Area
Deception technology can be used in both virtual and real-time operation scenarios. Moreover, it can detect threats through all the enterprises which include the perimeter, the endpoint, the network, active directory, and application layers, as well as environments such as SCADA/ICS, IoT, and cloud.
4. Automated Response System
Systems or networks using deception technology as a line of defense have automated detection and response systems included in their system. With the induction of machine learning and artificial intelligence in deception technologies, systems, and networks and becoming more intelligent and less prone to attacks.
5. Low False Positives
A false positive is an error in a system that shows false detection of an anomaly which can be referred to as noise. Too much noise can make the IT team distracted from what a legitimate problem can be. Deception technology reduces the noise as it only broadcasts notification of a threat after analyzing and careful perusal of the attack vectors.
Use Case Scenarios
1. Safeguarding Patient Data
In the first half of 2017, the health industry in the US underwent 228 breaches which include 31 million records stolen which was an increase of 423% from the past six months. This trend continues to August and September 2017 during which 33 and 46 breaches occurred respectively. Deception technologies play a vital role in these kinds of breaches as it has a minimum risk of losing data. The data which can be lost will be the mimic files of the original data. Moreover, deception technology helps to find critical loopholes in the whole enterprise system and provides IT teams enough time to tackle a breach.
2. Safeguarding Enterprises Through M&A Driven Change
Business processes are very dynamic these days. They are continuously evolving and expanding through the network. New endpoints, payment systems, and data have been added to the network every day. So, it became a necessity to cover all the evolving things within your enterprise protection system. Deception technology is designed to provide coverage to continuously evolving networks and place decoys where ever necessary to ensure the security of the system.
3. Safeguarding The Financial Service Sector
On a regular day, the SWIFT financial message services deliver more than 25 million communications which help in all major and minor transactions around the globe. In such a complex system, there can be a number of gateways through which an attacker can get into the network and can damage not only the financial institution but can be a curse to the economy. In such a system advanced threat protection and monitoring are needed which can also minimize the risk of losing the data. Here, deception technology is prominently used these days.
With continuous research and emerging technologies in the cybersecurity field, various firms are providing deception technology as a cybersecurity solution. A few of them are listed below.
Apart from these major players in deception technology, there are numerous other companies that provide deception technology solutions as their service or product. Below is a list of key field areas upon which deception technology tools can be implemented to ensure the safety of the system or network.
Government agencies
Deception technology vendors
Network solution providers
Independent software vendors
Consulting firms
System integrators
Value-added resellers
Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs)
Challenges
At present, Deception technology is playing a vital role in tackling various emerging and evolving threats around the globe. Be it working in different domains of professional services or working in different environments, the creation, and deployment of decoys relevant to particular organizational assets has always been a challenge to the IT team for implanting deception technology. With the evolving threat defense technologies, attackers also want to pace up with emerging technologies, in lieu of which daily new kinds of threats are being made to take advantage of the loopholes in the system. Thus, the rapid adoption of evolving threats in the cloud and virtual environments is also a bane for the deployment of the technology. But with the rigorous research and developments in this field, that day is also not far when these challenges will also be solved with dynamic techniques and be a shining example of cyber safety technology.
Future Of Deception Technology
No matter how advanced and competent any cyber technology may become, attackers will always manage to leverage any loophole according to their need and will find a gateway to enter the system or network to damage it. This can be seen with an increase in the number of attacks happening every year and how the number is increasing. Analyzing the present scenario, deployment of decoy files according to the organizational assets is a cumbersome task for efficient usage of deception technology, which will be handled by upgrading the technology in upcoming years. Besides it, if we look at its positive counterpart, it allows us to learn about any new kind of attacks which is happening and evolving day by day and the best part is, the user data is mostly safe due to decoys implanted which provides subscribers with enough trust to invest in deception technology. Apart from these advantages, various other advantages are also listed above which proves how efficient and competent deception technology will be, above other cyber technologies which can be seen with a trend of the increasing market value of deception technology which will rise to USD 2814.16 million by 2026.
Conclusion
Between January 1, 2005, and May 31, 2020, there have been 11,762 recorded breaches. In the first half of the year 2020, data breaches have exposed 36 billion records. Rapidly increasing cyber crime is boosting the cybersecurity market. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and McAfee, cybercrime, which includes damage and destruction of data, stolen money, lost property, intellectual property theft, and other areas, currently cost the world almost USD 600 billion each year, or 0.8% of the global GDP, which is a very large amount. The cybersecurity market was valued at USD 156.24 billion in 2020, and it is expected to reach USD 352.25 billion by 2026. This shows rapid cybercrime is growing and with it, the cybersecurity sector is also growing. Deception Technology being new as an offensive measure for breaches and cybercrime provides its own advantages upon traditional prevention-based methods, discussed in this article. The deception technology market was valued at USD 1335.5 million in 2020, and it is expected to reach USD 2814.16 million by 2026, which is also evidence of deception technology as a trusted solution by many enterprises and increasing every year. So we can see deception technology is almost all the major areas, where network security is needed.
References
Keywords: cybercrime, deception technology, cyber threat, cyber attack, computer network, security code, network security, computer security.
