Detecting malicious activity by using endemic network hosts as decoys

Abstract

A system for detecting malicious activity in networks, including a deception manager having administrative credentials for a network, planting deceptions within network hosts, and distributing a decoy agent to each endemic decoy host (EDH), each deception including information regarding decoy communication ports of an EDH, each EDH having a group of ports, referred to as decoy ports, for connection by an attacker from a network host that the attacker has breached, wherein each decoy agent is programmed to alert the deception management server, and to proxy communication with the attacker to a trap server, in response to the decoy agent identifying the attacker attempting a connection to the decoy agent's EDH via one of the decoy ports, and a forensic collector that collects, from the breached network host, forensics of the attacker's activity, when the decoy agent acts as a proxy between the attacker and the trap server.