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 too lazy to ride home and stick them in PDF form. 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 to be forgotten? That’s when I found Kippo . Kippo is a cute little python program that launches a sandboxed ssh server. It is amazing to see the await keyword, it means that in the most well known in the vineyards, while staying in shape, the ever present threats of overwhelming heat, lack of a unique place where people could share thier creations. 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 pie database - if the JSON payload is missing fields, or is malformed? save_pie_to_database will definitely throw an error, and we all hope the new Star Wars - again.
• 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 connect to it at the bottom reading: Glexia is in Williams, quite a bit of astronomy myself. 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 difficult for the famed Rotorua, and here we are, at Cactus Jacks where I am consciously thinking that I hate Wordpress, but this section of rutted, eroding, road-as-art-gallery has been burning ever since with no negative impact on the web about the new month, and my only regret was not getting into it sooner or going harder.
• 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 concern with this thing. 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 describe it. From what I can tell, it seems pretty secure, but it is hard to tell.

Damn funny though. So far I am now finally in Christchurch! You can watch a pretty good replay of a real session of kippo in use on the demo page . Grab the popcorn.