Honeypot Threat Analysis — July 16, 2026

Cybersecurity Analysis for July 16, 2026

Threat Overview

On July 16, 2026, the honey-ai.dev honeypot system experienced a significant surge in activity over the past week. SSH logins spiked to an alarming 353 out of 676 total, indicating a high volume of unauthorized access attempts. This rise in connections is concerning and suggests that the security measures are not robust enough.

SSH Attacks: The top IP addresses responsible for these attacks include 175.163.109.150, 85.175.57.42, 153.51.224.7, and 103.173.7.133. The primary methods used were FTP, Telnet, SMTP, MySQL, Redis, Git, VNC, RDP, and HTTP.

HTTP Traffic: A notable increase in HTTP traffic was observed with 139 requests out of a total of 139 from 35 IPs. This indicates that the honeypot system is attracting attention from external parties for different reasons.

IDS Alerts: The Intrusion Detection System (IDS) generated an impressive 8390 alerts across 631 IPs, with critical severity levels. Suricata IDS flagged a significant number of suspicious activities, suggesting that there may be ongoing malicious activity or attempts to evade detection.

AbuseIPDB Reporting: A total of 171 addresses were reported for abuse by AbuseIPDB, highlighting the need for better network segmentation and security policies.

Geographical Analysis

The honeypot system was active across various geographical locations. United States, China, Belgium, Pakistan, Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, India, and Korea, Republic of were among the top countries contributing to the attacks. This distribution suggests that these regions are being targeted by attackers for different reasons.

SSH Brute Force

The SSH brute force attempts spiked significantly during this period with 317 login attempts out of a total of 676 logins. The high volume indicates a potential vulnerability in password management or weak authentication mechanisms. The top IP addresses responsible were 85.175.57.42 and 103.173.7.133, both with multiple login attempts.

Post-Exploitation

The honeypot system was not compromised due to the absence of malware, indicating that attackers are primarily targeting it for SSH brute force attacks rather than leveraging vulnerabilities or exploiting weaknesses in the environment.

Web Scanning

A notable increase in HTTP traffic from /dispatch.asp and /login, suggesting potential reconnaissance activities. The top paths included “/dispatch.asp”, “/login”, “/cli?remoting=false”, and **“/clients/MyCRL”. This indicates that attackers are exploring the honeypot’s capabilities for further attacks.

IDS & Scan Intel

The IDS system flagged 8390 suspicious activities across 631 IPs, with a critical severity level. These alerts highlight ongoing malicious activity or attempts to evade detection by altering network traffic patterns and using various protocols.

Malware

There were no instances of malware captured during the period, indicating that the honeypot is not being used for malicious purposes in this instance.

Tarpit

A total of 76 connections were trapped from 47 IPs, with no time wasted on these attempts. This suggests that attackers are attempting to probe the honeypot system but not succeeding in their initial objectives.

Canarytokens

5 triggers were set up for the honeypot system, indicating an active security presence and a readiness to respond to potential threats.

MCP Trap

The honeypot was targeted by 11 open scans with no significant vulnerabilities exposed. The targets included 151.243.11.52, 65.49.1.13, 65.49.1.12, and 65.49.1.10.

Portscans

There were 0 portscans detected, indicating that the honeypot system’s security measures are effective in preventing unauthorized access attempts through common exploitation methods.

AI Defense

The honeypot system is not being used to inject malicious payloads or leak sensitive data. There have been no instances of injection blocks or leak blocks, suggesting a high level of protection against potential cyber threats.

TTY Commands

41 sessions were observed using the TTY commands:

796x: uname -s -v -n -r -m
44x: cd ~; chattr -ia .ssh; lockr -ia .ssh
44x: cd ~ TTY_PHTTY_PH rm -rf .ssh TTY_PHTTY_PH mkdir .ssh TTY_PHTTY_PH echo "ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAr
20x: /bin/./uname -s -v -n -r -m
2x: cat /proc/cpuinfo grep name wc -l
2x: cat /proc/cpuinfo grep name head -n 1 ...

Community Defense

The honeypot system is an open-source project, and its security measures are transparently shared with the community. This approach ensures that any vulnerabilities can be easily identified and patched.

Security Status Summary:

SSH Brute Force Attempts: High
HTTP Traffic: Moderate
IDS Alerts: High
AbuseIPDB Reporting: Low

Conclusion

The honey-ai.dev honeypot system experienced a significant increase in activity, with SSH brute force attempts being the primary threat. The absence of malware and successful tarpit efforts suggests that attackers are primarily targeting the honeypot for reconnaissance activities. Further investigation is recommended to address these security vulnerabilities and improve overall defense mechanisms.

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 by HoneyAI. View the raw data report for complete metrics.