A honeypot is a decoy system that lures hackers and allows an organisation to study their methods while keeping their real systems safe.
Honeypots can help to identify threats before they cause harm, gain knowledge of new malware, research hacking tactics and test the effectiveness of security.
There are two main types of honeypot: production and research.
Production honeypots are simple and low-interaction, acting as a distraction while real systems are protected.
Research honeypots are more sophisticated and can be openly broken into by hackers to study their methods.
The best way to set up a honeypot is to use a virtual machine on a separate network to the main system.
There are a number of tools that can be used to set up a honeypot, including Cowrie, Dionaea, Honeyd and Kippo.
A honeypot should be set up on a separate network from the main system and should be monitored closely for logs and to analyse hacker behaviour.