Microsoft’s Azure Honeypots – A Promising Step Forward
Microsoft is spawning realistic-looking honeypot tenants to collect intelligence about cybercriminals
This is an innovative response to the rising tide of phishing and cyberattacks and was recently discussed at BSides Exeter conference by Ross Bevington, a principal security software engineer at Microsoft with the glorious title of Microsoft’s “Head of Deception” (read more here).
These honeypots, designed to resemble real tenant environments complete with user accounts, file-sharing, and internal communications, lure attackers into thinking they’ve accessed legitimate systems. The data gathered from these traps is then used to study attack patterns, phishing kits, and cybercriminal behavior, enabling more effective defenses against both ordinary hackers and sophisticated nation-state actors like Russia’s Midnight Blizzard.
What We Like About Microsoft’s Approach
The proactive nature of Microsoft’s deception tactics is one of its strongest aspects. Instead of passively waiting for attackers to stumble upon honeypots, Microsoft actively plants fake credentials in known phishing sites, tricking cybercriminals into engaging with these phony environments. This is a significant shift from traditional honeypot models and demonstrates the utility of large-scale deception in modern cybersecurity.
Moreover, the ability to waste an attacker’s time—up to 30 days, in some cases—is a masterstroke. By keeping attackers occupied in fake environments, Microsoft not only buys time to analyze their behaviors but also disrupts their campaigns. The data gleaned from these interactions can lead to more sophisticated threat intelligence and improved defenses across the broader cybersecurity landscape.
Where It Falls Short
Despite these benefits, there are some limitations in Microsoft’s approach. First, while gathering data on attackers is crucial, it’s unclear how well this approach scales in the long term. If attackers catch on and begin avoiding Azure tenants altogether, the utility of these honeypots could diminish. Additionally, only 5% of attackers fall into the honeypot traps—a relatively low success rate given the volume of phishing activity .
Another potential limitation is that these traps, though cleverly designed, don’t directly engage with the full spectrum of cyber threats beyond phishing. Attackers using advanced tactics like zero-day exploits or supply chain attacks might bypass these traps entirely, leaving significant gaps in coverage.
Similarities and Differences to Seedata.io
Like Microsoft, at Seedata.io, we understand the immense value of deception as a tool for proactive defense. Both approaches focus on diverting attackers from real assets while simultaneously gathering intelligence. However, where Seedata.io stands apart is in our broader vision of embedding deception across various layers of an organization’s security stack. Instead of relying on large-scale honeypots limited to phishing, we advocate for a more pervasive model where deception is used in more subtle and scalable ways across numerous attack vectors.
Our mission is also more inclusive: Microsoft’s approach is currently restricted to their internal environments, whereas Seedata.io’s platform integrates across diverse platforms and is designed to benefit organizations of all sizes, not just global enterprises.
What We Wish Microsoft Would Do Next
To elevate this strategy further, we’d love to see Microsoft expand the types of honeypots they use. Incorporating decoy assets that mimic different types of sensitive data—financial records, intellectual property, or customer information—could broaden the scope of attackers trapped and the intelligence gathered. Microsoft should also explore ways to bring this technology closer to the end-user, perhaps in a deployable form for businesses that want their own deception networks, rather than a strictly internal tool.
Additionally, increasing collaboration between teams like Microsoft and platforms like Seedata.io could create a more holistic defense framework. For example, the intelligence gathered by Microsoft could be anonymized and shared across the wider cybersecurity community to amplify its impact.
A Future Vision: The Deception Moonshot
Imagine a future where deception technology is deployed across the entire digital ecosystem, from individual user accounts to global cloud infrastructure. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if companies could deploy their own customizable honeypots with minimal effort, fed by a global intelligence network that learns from every trap set and every attack thwarted? Picture a world where attackers never know if the system they’ve breached is real or a trap, leading to exponential uncertainty and rendering most attack strategies ineffective. That’s the future of cybersecurity we should all be working toward.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Microsoft’s Azure honeypots are a promising step, but there’s room for growth. At Seedata.io, we look forward to pushing the boundaries of what deception technology can achieve, while collaborating with the broader community to make cyberspace more secure for everyone.
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