What is a honeypot in cybersecurity?

A honeypot is a decoy: a fake server, device or account set up so that no legitimate user ever needs to touch it. Because nobody should connect to it, any connection is suspicious by definition, which gives you an alert with almost no false alarms. Honeypots on the internet attract constant scanning and are mostly used for research into attacker behaviour. Inside a company network, a simple decoy file share or fake login page can catch an intruder who is exploring. Honeypots must be isolated carefully so they cannot become a way into the real network.

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