Apparently bears find honey irresistible and in the same way hackers can’t resist the challenge to gain access to a computer or system.
A Honey pot is a computer system set up as a trap for hackers, crakers and scriptkiddies trying to gain unauthorised access to other people or a company’s computers or systems. The trap is set up to detect, deflect and counteract unlawful usage of information systems.
The trap consists of a computer, data or a network site with valuable information for hackers and crackers. It appears to be part of a network, but in fact, runs completely isolated and is monitored and discreetly regulated.
Maintenance of a honey pot requires a large amount of attention and won’t necessarily guarantee a successful outcome. In some case it will only serve as a learning experience and hackers won’t necessarily be cornered.
A network of these traps set up in a production environment, is called a honeynet. The term originated in 1999 from a paper by Lance Spitzner, founder of the Honeynet Project, called To build a Honeypot. (Read Spitzner’s interesting article here)
[SOURCES: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com & www.wikipedia.org]
