Both honeypots and crowdsourced threat intelligence play key roles in the collection of threat intelligence data, but what are the differences? 

Honeypots are controlled environments that mimic likely targets of cyberattacks, acting as a decoy to lure attackers away from their real targets, while crowdsourced threat intelligence harnesses the collective power of a community to identify and combat threats in real time, protecting the very systems and networks that honeypots mimic. 

Let’s take a closer look at how honeypots work, and whether they are more efficient at protecting assets when compared to the collective intelligence of a crowd. 

What are honeypots?

Honeypots serve as a bait to attackers, and are isolated from an organization’s main network. They can be deployed to appear as real networks, real servers or even set up as applications that mimic real systems. Aside from distracting bad actors from critical infrastructure, they also provide security teams with insights into the tools and methods that attackers are using to target their systems. 

How do honeypots work?

Honeypots can be deployed outside an organization’s primary network to lure attackers before they reach internal defenses, or more commonly in a network area known as the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on one side of the firewall that is isolated from internal networks, but still accessible by security teams. 

how do honeypots work

Once a honeypot has been deployed, it starts to log all activities that happen within it’s environment, like failed connection attempts or specific commands used by the attacker. By examining all of this collected activity, SOC analysts can analyze the specific attack techniques that are used to gain initial access, as well as the tools and vulnerabilities they exploit. 

By conducting this analysis and getting an insight into the processes of attackers, security teams can use this knowledge to better protect their systems against similar attack attempts on their real infrastructure in the future. 

What is crowdsourced threat intelligence?

Crowdsourced threat intelligence harnesses the collective power of a community to identify and respond to security threats. It involves the aggregation of insights and data from a diverse network of contributors to enhance threat detection and mitigation. 

The goal of crowdsourced threat intelligence is to leverage a collective pool of insights to identify and mitigate threats more effectively than the knowledge of one team alone, allowing security teams to make a much more proactive approach to security. 

Methodology of crowdsourced threat intelligence

The collection of crowdsourced threat intelligence data involves the aggregation of data from many different sources, whether that is data from application and network logs, third-party threat feeds, and reports from other users. 

This data is aggregated by one central network, where advanced machine learning techniques, canary networks, and even specially deployed honeypots verify the intelligence and identify different patterns and emerging threat details. This processing of the data ensures the signals are highly accurate and free from false positives, and even free from data poisoning attempts from malicious actors. 

Once the threat intelligence data has gone through this curation stage, it is then disseminated to all of its contributors and provides actionable insights for security teams, allowing them to take proactive and preventive measures against known threats and attackers. 

the methodology of collecting and curating crowdsourced threat intelligence

Potential disadvantages of honeypots

The biggest drawback of using honeypot networks instead of a feed of crowdsourced threat intelligence is the lack of real-life incidents and attacks. Because honeypots are designed as bait to attract attackers, they are susceptible to gathering data from more basic and automated threats rather than the more sophisticated techniques that real-life attackers are likely to deploy. 

Since the environments within honeypots are also artificial, in a lot of cases, they do not replicate the complexity of real-life networks, which can also limit how far security teams can apply the data that has been collected.

A major downside to the use of honeypots is how resource-intensive they can be. In a time when organizations are becoming more aware and careful of their spending, honeypots require significant resources to set up and maintain. Not only that, unlike providers of crowdsourced threat intelligence who are responsible for curating and validating collected threat signals before sharing that intelligence with end users, organizations deploying honeypots need to commit a lot of effort to the continuous monitoring and analysis of their honeypot networks to be able to derive any actionable insights, which again intensifies the effort and resources required. 

Honeypots have also been known to raise legal and ethical concerns, particularly regarding privacy and the potential for entrapment, which can complicate their use in certain environments.

Benefits of crowdsourced threat intelligence

So what are the benefits of taking a crowdsourced approach to threat intelligence?

The major advantage when it comes to crowdsourced data is the diversity of the intelligence that is collected. This data comes from real users, real servers, in real production environments across a massive range of industries, enhancing the effectiveness of proactive defense and mitigating risks by incorporating insights from a broad spectrum of sources and real-world scenarios.

The collaborative nature of crowdsourced threat intelligence also establishes a foundation for real-time threat response. This collective approach enables the rapid identification of new threats as they emerge, allowing for swift action to mitigate risks before they escalate. The shared knowledge from diverse sources enhances the overall understanding of the threat landscape, ensuring that responses are well-informed and effective.

This proactive stance enables organizations to stay ahead of emerging security challenges, minimizing the potential impact of threats. With crowdsourced intelligence, organizations are not just reacting to threats but also anticipating them, which helps in implementing preventative measures such as the deployment of blocklists or auto-blocking rules to a network’s firewall.

Honeypots vs. crowdsourced threat intelligence: Which one is better?

As we’ve seen, both honeypots and crowdsourced threat intelligence have a role to play in identifying and mitigating risks. 

Honeypots can offer analysis of attack behavior and techniques through the use of a controlled environment, provided they have been configured correctly, and SOC teams have the time and resources to apply that analysis. Crowdsourced intelligence, on the other hand, leverages the power of a community facing real-life threats in real production environments, allowing SOC teams to detect and mitigate threats swiftly and often automatically. 

benefits and drawbacks of using honeypots vs crowdsourced threat intelligence

If you want to learn more about the crowdsourced approach to cyber threat intelligence and gain a deeper understanding of the curation and aggregation methods deployed, feel free to sign up for our free learning course on the CrowdSec Academy. 

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References and further reading