Random thought for an exploding honey token

John W8MEJ Menerick · June 27, 2013

honey tokens   compressed file attacks   mail server vulnerabilities   resource exhaustion   insider threat detection   security experimentation   MTA inspection   system logs monitoring

I remember when Nuxi and I would create computationally compact compressed files and see which mail servers would attempt to inspect the contents. Typically, the MTA would fail over due to lacking heap space, heavy swapping, insanely large disk IO, and other resource utilization problems. Besides, during the school year, exploding the mail gateways was a great way to cause the university’s mail server to go down and buy a few day’s extra time. So why not cause the same reckless behavior, but cause a large blip to happen when an inside actor attempts to inspect a honey token?

Name the compressed file CreditCard_Customers.zip , .zip, etc…. Then place it somewhere available for the intended audience. Or somewhere not available. For instance, put it in the confidential file share. Then watch asset’s system logs for resource utilization errors related to unpacking a 35 PB zip file. Or see if someone attempts to email it to their personal email address (assuming the MTA will cough and die when inspection occurs.) You did make your MTA rugged, right?

Here are two test files​. Modify to your liking.

​​

Share on: