A Walk Through “Sombria”: A Network Surveillance System

Sombria (“shadowy” in Portuguese) is a honeypot system set up in Tokyo, Japan, that is intended for network surveillance and research and not for production purposes. This honeypot system consists of a web server, a firewall and an intrusion detection system. Sombria is a combination of surveillance technologies to watch intruders closely and in real time as they go about their mission without them even noticing it. The intrusion detection system first triggers an alarm whenever an individual breaches security or breaks into the system. Meanwhile, all the commands executed (keystrokes) by the intruder are logged for post-attack analysis. And finally, the firewall drops all packets anytime the intruder attempts to use Sombria as a steppingstone to launch attacks against other systems.

This paper provides some statistics and an overview of the most prominent attacks from May through July 2003.

Download the paper in PDF format here.