Irish companies targeted by hackers
The first results of the Irish Honeynet show that the international hacking community is targeting Irish websites, and that constant vigilance is required from networked organizations.
A total of 184 attacks were recorded in just 14 days.
The Irish Honeynet was set up by Deloitte & Touche, Espion and Inflow last month and is designed to mimic the internet infrastructures commonly used by organizations, but is "wired" with detection sensors that capture all activity around the system.
The Honeynet does not have a domain name so any interest it generates is suspicious as it arises from hackers who are deliberately attempting to identify systems that are vulnerable.
In the first fortnight of full activity, 184 attacks against the Honeynet were recorded.
While the bulk of the recorded activity came from the US, Great Britain and Germany, Asia also appeared particularly active with hackers from China, Korea and Taiwan making up nearly 20% of the total.
Gerry Fitzpatrick of Deloitte & Touche said: "These results, after such a short period, show that Irish companies are not immune to threats posed by hackers around the works. Any company which is linked to the Internet and is not taking information security seriously is vulnerable to attack from hackers".
Joe O'Keefe, Managing Director of Inflow, said: "Within minutes of going live with Honeynet, we were scanned by hackers from all over the globe. With our research the trap that so many organizations fall into of relying on 'security through obscurity' is proven to completely inadequate.
"Companies are exposed and if they don't take action to address their system vulnerabilities, they can be readily attacked."
