• The field of deception technology is set to become more prolific this year as business look for creative ways to stop cybercrime.
• Unfortunately, there is a lack of skills in the field of deception leading to slow uptake by business owners.
• Not only does deception technology provide a layer of protection it also gives insight into how cybercriminals move through a network.

Your business, yes yours, is a target for cybercriminals. How could we make such a brash statement without knowing what your business does, how it operates, and what your revenue or turnover is? The fact is that every business, and individual for that matter, is a target for cybercriminals.

No matter what your income is, if cybercriminals manage to compromise your business banking account or redirect payments to themselves via a supply-chain attack, that is likely going to be the end of your business. According to a report in 2019, 60 percent of small businesses that fall victim to a data breach or cyberattack go out of business.

As such a good defence against cybercrime is essential but these days, one has to get creative when protecting your digital assets.

One technique that fits that description is deception technology.

As the name implies, deception technology involves fooling cybercriminals by making them think they have breached a company when they’ve just breached a fake. Unlike a honeypot, deception technology doesn’t include any intentional vulnerabilities, although a honeypot is a form of deception technology.

“Deception technology is usually not a primary cybersecurity strategy that organizations adopt. The goal of any security posture is protection against all unauthorized access, and deception technology can be a useful technique to have in place once a suspected breach has occurred. Diverting the cyber criminal to fake data and credentials can be key to protecting the enterprise’s real assets,” Fortinet explains about the concept.

Another benefit of deception technology is that it can be used to observe and gather data about attackers. This information is invaluable in the fight against cybercrime and can reveal how attackers move through a system, how long they remain there, and what they do while inside a network.

Unfortunately, skills in this department are in short supply. Last year, Kate Mollett, senior director for Commvault Africa highlighted that only 22 percent of respondents in a white paper the firm sponsored had carried out cyber deception. The fact the figure was so low was directly attributed to deception skills being scarce.

As an aside, this may be a good skill to add to your kit this year along with some of the others we mentioned in the most recent episode of Hypertext Presents Always Online.

Despite this dearth of skills, deception is becoming a more popular solution according to regional manager for Commvault in West, East and Central Africa, Saul Wamalwa.

“One of the main benefits of cyber deception is that it is a proactive rather than reactive strategy, which allows enterprise security teams to beat attackers at their own game. Considering the value and strategic importance of data in businesses, enterprises should thus explore protecting their critical data by deploying cyber deception technology as a service,” says Wamalwa.

“By essentially increasing an organisation’s attack surface and luring cybercriminals to attack a fake resource, cyber deception strategies act as an early warning system that an attack is happening, which gives security teams time to bolster their defensive measures, lock out the intruders and ensure that the environment is stable and secure,” the regional manager adds.

As outlined by Jon Oltstik, founder of ESG’s cybersecurity service and noted analyst, deception technology will become more pervasive in 2024 and by 2025 it will be a security operations staple.

“If I were a younger man, I’d drive to Boston, grab some money from local VCs, and hire a bunch of MIT students to build a modern deception system myself. I predict some similar independent efforts but ultimately, deception technology will piggyback on top of other security operations systems. Fortinet and Zscaler are already pursuing this approach, I expect others to follow suit,” Oltstik wrote in CSO Online last year.

This does seem to be an area of cybersecurity worth paying attention to for both professionals in the field and business owners alike, especially with all the growth potential.

[Image – jacqueline macou from Pixabay]