What is a honeypot?
A honeypot is a system that looks worth attacking — and exists so you can watch what happens next.
Decoy, not destination
Real servers hold your files, cameras, and mail. A honeypot holds nothing you care about. When someone knocks, you learn who, how, and how often without handing them production.
What you learn
- Which protocols scanners try first on your subnet
- Credential stuffing and brute-force patterns
- Whether interest is casual internet noise or something closer to home
Why hardware helps
Software honeypots on shared machines blur lines: one misconfig and your decoy shares fate with real workloads. HoneyBox is a dedicated ESP32 appliance with a clear job — emulate services, log to SD, stay local.