Cybersecurity Policy Report, CISA Recommends Use of ‘Decoys’ to Fool, Misdirect Hackers, (Sep 17, 2026)
“Bread crumbs” and “honeypots” are among the ingredients that critical infrastructure operators should use to improve their cyber defenses by fooling and misdirecting hackers, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
CISA yesterday released guidance titled “Using Cyber Decoys to Strengthen Detection and Response” that recommends ways to detect cyber intruders and distract them with worthless data.
“To support robust cyber defense planning, organizations should incorporate cyber decoy capabilities alongside existing Zero Trust models. Zero Trust assumes no user, device, application, or network segment is inherently trustworthy and requires continuous verification of all access and activity,” the guidance explains.
“In this context, cyber decoy strategies operate on the expectation that malicious actors may eventually gain some level of access. By placing decoys within internal networks and systems, organizations can detect, observe, and impede malicious activity early in the intrusion lifecycle,” it says.
Decoys explored in the guidance include “tripwires,” defined as decoys “configured such that any interaction (e.g., access, authentication attempt, command execution) generates an alert.”
“Breadcrumbs,” according to the guidance, are “decoy artifacts that adversaries are encouraged to follow, leading to other decoy assets or controlled environments,” while “honeypots” are “systems or services, often with limited but realistic functionality and intentional vulnerabilities, designed to attract and observe adversaries and divert them from real assets.”
“Cyber decoys used in a proactive cyber defense strategy help make critical infrastructure networks unfriendly places for adversaries and enhance resilience to compromise, even against living-off-the-land techniques,” Chris Butera, CISA’s acting executive assistant director–cybersecurity said in a news release.
“With this guide, CISA is raising awareness of cyber decoy techniques and enabling any defensive team regardless of skill level to understand the value and steps to implementing decoy operations,” Mr. Butera added. “CISA encourages critical infrastructure organizations to review this guide and implement a cyber decoy strategy.”
News: FederalLegislation DataSecurity