Deception technology is an effective way to protect your network infrastructure against external attacks proactively. It uses a simple approach of deploying decoy assets indistinguishable from legitimate network resources.
These realistic-but-fake assets can be positioned across the network, providing new visibility into your infrastructure and sharing high-probability alerts with the existing security stack.
Improved Threat Detection
Deception technology solutions are a powerful addition to any security infrastructure. They can improve detection across the entire attack chain, from reconnaissance and lateral movement to privilege escalation and data theft.
Deception systems can be based on honeypots, decoy endpoints, or mock networks. With the aid of these tools, security teams can deploy dummy users in locations where attackers are likely unable to access them but where authorized users wouldn’t.
One key aspect of deception is that it allows security teams to detect threats faster than traditional methods. It contrasts threat detection approaches based on behavioral data or analytics that produce false positive alerts.
For instance, the deception solution will alert the security team if a user works on a decoy file and takes it to another machine. The security team can stop the malware from running on the other computer.
It makes it easier for security teams to respond and shortens the mean time to detection (MTTD). Typically, this means that an incident will be detected within minutes.
It is instrumental in today’s networks, which are constantly expanding due to the daily addition of new endpoints, data, and payment systems. It is possible to provide coverage for continually changing business processes by placing decoys anywhere an attacker can access a network.
Less False Positives
For security teams, more than a few false positives can become a drag on resources. It can lead to alert fatigue and complacency in security experts, harming their ability to respond effectively to threats.
Deception technology solutions can help decrease false positives by generating high-fidelity alerts with valuable data. It reduces the noise and ensures that only legitimate threats are spotted.
It is especially true when paired with other technologies, such as UEBA systems with high false positives due to inbuilt self-learning algorithms.
Cyber attackers are constantly changing their tactics and moving around networks. These techniques can be complicated for threat hunters to spot, so more organizations are turning to deception technologies for active defense.
The fewer false positives detected with these solutions means that security teams can spend more time on real threats and less time searching through false alarms. It can increase their Mean Time To Know and MTTK metrics.
Security teams can also reduce their Mean Time To Detect to near-zero with strategically placed deception deployments across their network. It will help free up person-hours directed towards other operational requirements, such as defending against more capable attackers. It can significantly benefit forward-leaning, big-budget customers with a large security team and budget.
Reduced Time to Response
To minimize the time attackers spend in an environment, security teams must detect their presence early. Deception technology helps organizations do just that, reducing dwell time and providing quick and effective detection.
In addition to reducing dwell time, many deception technology solutions can provide more granular control over attackers. It can be done by altering dwell times based on the type of assault or attack.
For example, one customer deployed a hologram in their remote offices and data center, allowing them to detect attacks anywhere on the network. It is a highly effective solution for detecting ransomware, credential-based attacks, and man-in-the-middle (MITM) threats.
The technology also delivers accurate indicators of compromise, or IOCs, backed by TTPs and other information to help security teams better understand the attacker’s intentions. It is critical to minimize the cost and reputational impact of an attack.
Deception technology is a vital part of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. It offers several benefits and is widely used by forward-leaning, big-budget organizations with solid security functions. These organizations use it to optimize threat detection, internal threat intelligence creation, and response capabilities. It also allows them to be competitive with more advanced threats. Consequently, it is one of the most commonly adopted technologies in cyber defense today.
Reduced Costs
Whether you’re a CISO trying to improve your detect, know, and respond metrics or a security analyst struggling to get control of all those false positives, deception technology solutions can make a huge difference. Not only do they provide improved threat detection, but they also help reduce costs.
Unlike other security technologies that require specialized teams to operate and maintain, deception technology is automatically delivered natively as part of an XDR platform. It saves small and medium-sized enterprises the cost of purchasing and deploying a standalone solution.
The main advantage of deception technology is that it can nullify threats or breaches in real time, enabling teams to detect and respond to malicious activity efficiently. It is essential for security teams whose responsibilities include incident response since detecting and identifying an attack can take hours or days, depending on the nature of the attacker and the underlying issue.
In addition, it can reduce the time it takes to determine adversary tactics and the root cause of incidents. It can significantly shorten the cycle time for incident response and allow the team to focus on other matters.
Deception technology can prevent various attacks, from surveys to data theft. It is because it works to nullify threats and breaches in real-time, enabling teams from both the security and IT departments to quickly detect, analyze and respond to malicious activity.
