Cyber deception is a proactive defense strategy designed to mislead attackers by deploying decoy infrastructure—such as fake assets, honeypots, fraudulent data, and false credentials—that appear legitimate. These traps divert intruders away from critical systems, generating high-confidence alerts that allow defenders to observe malicious behavior in a controlled manner. As attackers interact with these deceptive environments, organizations gain valuable intelligence on their tactics, enabling more accurate intrusion detection, stronger access controls, and more resilient business continuity planning.

Practical implementation strategies include setting up industrial-grade honeypots that mimic SCADA or IoT devices, planting decoy files and email accounts to monitor threat actor behavior, deploying fake credentials to track unauthorized access attempts, and diverting suspicious network traffic away from live systems into safe analysis zones. These techniques can integrate seamlessly alongside existing cybersecurity tools, transforming defensive operations from reactive to intelligence-driven—empowering security teams to anticipate, adapt to, and outmaneuver evolving threats.

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Source: https://gca.isa.org/blog/implementing-cyber-deception-in-industrial-cybersecurity