A Fly In The Honeypot

Technology is expanding to all corners of the world. Along with it comes threats such as data leaks and other malicious attacks. It has never been more vital for businesses and individuals to protect themselves online. As cybercriminals become more talented, so do the methods that we can use to protect ourselves.

A few protection methods used can be as simple as using a residential proxy, like this one, to protect your identity. This type of proxy keeps your real identity and location secret and safe. Another protection method used by companies is honeypotting. Honeypotting is in essence a fake site that appears to all malicious crawlers as a legitimate website. Let’s take a look at how you can protect yourself from data leaks and other malicious attacks by using some of these measures.

How Can Proxies Help?

A proxy is an intermediary server that manipulates data between the user and the target address. The proxy server gleans your details, but the receiver does not. Proxies are utilized within large companies and organizations to boost network performance, reduce unneeded downloads and reduce bandwidth loads. Anonymous browsing has become widely used by general end-users to allow camouflaged identities.

Elite and Anonymous Proxies assist users needing to view censored and geographically unavailable sites. A residential proxy has the power to unblock websites and bypass restrictions set by countries. Proxies are compatible with popular browsers like Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer and Chrome.

There are assorted proxies available to internet users; Residential, Datacenter, Anonymous and Transparent. Residential proxy locations offer quality, real IP addresses appearing to be generated from desktops, tablets and mobile devices.

Beware of the “Free Proxy”

Included in the assortment of proxy possibilities is a batch of warnings on “Free Proxies.”

Free proxies may look tantalizing until you examine the dangers.

“Free” Proxy and VPN Connections Unsavory Hit List:

Questionable third-party access to personal data.
Open your internet connection to potential illegal web activity.
Logs and stores your personal information.
Potential interaction with dishonest sources.
Private information transmitted on unsecured connections.
Potential sale of information to third parties.
Identity theft.
Monitoring your net activity.
Introduces Malware, Malvertising.
Steal your cookies.
Slow, unreliable browsing.
Connection instability.
Obsolete encryptions.
Data caps.

When checking the URL of most free proxies you will note that they lack the lock icon or the HTTPS protocol in the address bar. These are clear indications that the proxy is not encrypted or secure to use. Free proxies can lead to serious data leaks as their top priority is not to protect your data and anonymity.

Honeypots

Provided your proxy server usage is authentically operating with honorable, legal intentions; you should be successful in reaching the goals of use. Honeypots are set for those conducting nefarious activities and misuse of internet communication.

A honeypot is a baited security measure usually employed by larger businesses, to detect and deter unauthorized access to information networks and systems. Unwelcome users caught in honeypots or honeynets (two or more honeypots on a network) are identified, monitored, analyzed and blocked.

Honeypots mimic all the features of a real website, and thus appear very alluring to those with malicious intentions which makes them the perfect bait. Hackers can try to scrape data from these honeypots but will leave empty-handed. This is commonly used by institutions such as banks that deal with a lot of personal client information, which is very valuable to hackers and cyber criminals.

The gamut of honeypots provide several protective categories:

Deception Technology
Spam
Malware
Database
Production
Research

As an example you can thank the honeypot your email provider offers to circumvent the massive amounts of spam directed to your email box on an hourly basis!

Conclusion

There are threats on the internet, but luckily there are also measures to protect yourself. Beware of free proxies as they can lead to data leaks and other security issues that you want to avoid. Instead, make use of a good paid proxy to secure your data, along with other safety measures such as anti-malware devices, strong passwords and always logging out of your accounts when you are done.