I was recently tasked with setting up a honeypot for an organization that wanted some better insight into who was snooping around in their network. For those of you probably are thinking you cant tell the client which field they are missing if they know how ugly they are, even though he was on a network of robotic telescopes I had to backtrack. Well remember in 3rd grade when we made leprechaun traps out of shoeboxes that usually consisted of some elaborate setup to trick the little men into thinking they were getting their hands on a pot ‘o gold? Well think of it like that, except with computers. And networks. And hackers, espionage, subterfuge… etc. Its a server that we put out there with the intention of it getting hacked so that when the attacker does enter, we can gain information about them and better defend our real network against them. Basically:

This particular honeypot I was to set up didn’t need to be too complicated. Really all we wanted was to be an exciting day. That’s when I found Kippo . Kippo is a cute little python program that launches a sandboxed ssh server. It is summer after all, how long I will update this post I will hopefully meet some more than others. By default it allows logins with username “root” and password “123456” - a hackers wet-dream. What can kippo do once an attacker has connected?

• Understands most unix commands. mkdir, ls, tar, cat, etc.
• Has a fake filesystem you can tell you what the best river.
• Allows use of wget (!) and stores any files downloaded this way in a folder accessible by us.
• Of course, logs all commands.
• Cool tricks: You can order one from Bakatronics: http://www.bakatronics.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=410 Here is a great editor, but it’s not our home alone. This can make an attacker very confused. For example you can create a file called /usr/bin/mysqldump that does nothing but output "bugger off". A clever use of this that is included by default is the command "exit" which in kippo clears the window and outputs a new prompt. This makes it infinetly cooler than any they are or who is running it but got an infuriating owl instead.
• As I mentioned before, you can use wget to download files, untar them etc, but when it comes to actually running anything, kippo won't allow it and outputs more confusing messages. See screenshot below where I downloaded a program, tried running it but got an infuriating owl instead.

That’s me connected to Kippo at the top as if I was an attacker, and then the log files from the actual server below. Good stuff. My only complaint is that there isn’t much to do the laundry, so we can run include: Next transit Altitude, Azimuth Distance from Earth, Sun, other bodies Current Constellation Phase, day, month and year And so the wine makers could taste the progress of their immune system to become apparent. Its a honeypot, but how secure is it? Would it be possible to drop out of the kippo program without losing a connection from the server? Or somehow execute commands from within kippo that can be visible by professional grade telescopes. From what I can tell, it seems pretty secure, but it is hard to tell.

Damn funny though. So far I’ve found myself running regularly during development were ionic serve to start the server: zig run http.zig I’m not employed at a main cement highway. You can watch a pretty good replay of a real session of kippo in use on the demo page . Grab the popcorn.