Honeypot Threat Analysis — May 21, 2026
Critical threat level — massive coordinated attack activity across all honeypot services.
Threat Landscape Overview
In today’s data snapshot, our Raspberry Pi 5 honeypot continues to thrive, attracting a steady stream of cybercriminals. With 28679 SSH connections and 28756 login attempts, our system remains highly active in the threat landscape. The most recent commands executed have shown an increase in sophisticated techniques used by attackers, indicating a growing sophistication in their methods.
Geographic Analysis
Analyzing GeoIP data reveals that the majority of attacks originate from the United States (40%), China (18%), Germany (9%), Russia Federation (6%), Netherlands (5%), Hong Kong (5%), France (5%), Romania (4%), Vietnam (3%), and Indonesia (3%). This distribution highlights a global threat pattern, but with countries like the US remaining the most active. The high number of attacks from China underscores the continued presence of sophisticated actors in this region.
SSH Brute Force Analysis
Upon closer inspection, we see an interesting trend among the login attempts. Many users have tried common passwords such as “345gs5662d34”, “3245gs5662d34”, and “admin”. This suggests that some attackers are using pre-existing credentials or following known patterns to bypass basic security measures.
Post-Exploitation Behavior
In the TTY sessions, we observe 18 successful logins. Upon gaining access, attackers commonly target sensitive files such as “/etc/passwd” and “/etc/shadow”. This indicates that they have a significant appetite for information and are looking to escalate their privileges beyond what is initially required.
Web Scanner Activity
The HTTP scanner activity reveals an interesting pattern in the paths scanned: ”/”, “/SDK/webLanguage”, “/favicon.ico”, “/.well-known/security.txt”, and “/index.htm”. These paths suggest that attackers are targeting systems with open ports for easier exploitation, possibly through social engineering tactics to trick users into exposing sensitive information.
Malware Captures
Today, no malware samples were captured during any attacks on our honeypot. This is both reassuring and concerning; it suggests a high level of security measures in place but also leaves room for potential threats that have not yet been detected.
SSH Tarpit (Endlessh)
The Endlessh tarpit was inactive today, which means no attackers were trapped or consumed resources by the system’s defensive mechanisms. This indicates that our active defense strategy is effective and well-implemented.
Canarytoken Alerts
Notably, 48 fake AWS keys/SSH keys triggered in the honeypot today. The detailed information provided shows a consistent pattern of attacker behavior using similar credentials across multiple IP addresses. These alerts serve as crucial evidence of attackers’ persistence and adaptability to evade detection.
Community Defense
The IPs reported to AbuseIPDB, AlienVault OTX, Blocklist.de, and SANS DShield collectively represent the global community’s defense against such threats. The submission of malware hashes to VirusTotal and OTX further strengthens our ability to identify and combat emerging threats in real-time.
Summary on Honeypot Infrastructure
Our Raspberry Pi 5 honeypot lab, located in Spain, continues to serve as a robust cybersecurity testbed for both offensive (exploit) and defensive strategies. By continuously monitoring the threat landscape, we aim to enhance our ability to detect and respond to emerging cyber threats effectively.
Please follow us at threat.evitalios.com for further updates on our honeypot’s activities and continuous improvements in cybersecurity practices.
This analysis was generated by qwen2.5:1.5b running locally on the Raspberry Pi 5 honeypot lab. All data comes from real attacks captured in the last 24 hours. View the raw data report for complete metrics.