Honeypot Threat Analysis — October 16, 2026
Critical threat level — massive coordinated attack activity across all honeypot services.
2026-10-16 Analysis
Overview
On October 16, 2026, the Raspberry Pi 5 honeypot operated by honey-ai.dev saw a high volume of activity. A total of 973 command and control (C&C) commands were executed across 1846 events from 135 IPs. SSH was the primary method for gaining access to the system, with 1030 successful connections from 56 IP addresses.
Threat Analysis
The honeypot experienced a significant number of assaults during this period. Out of the 170 reported abuse attempts, 88338 alerts were generated by Suricata IDS, highlighting the robust security measures in place but also indicating that the system remains vulnerable to external threats.
Geographical Distribution
The majority of the attackers came from North America (United States: 56.9% and Canada: 10%), China (24.8%), Germany (13.7%), Belgium (10.2%), United Kingdom (8.6%), Pakistan (7.6%), Netherlands (6.8%), Hong Kong (5.8%), India (5.6%), and South Korea (5.1%). The honeypot’s defenses are particularly effective in stopping attacks from these regions, but it still faces threats from other parts of the world.
SSH Brute Force
SSH was extensively used for brute force attempts, with 48 connections being tarpit-protected and 23 remaining untrapped. This indicates that while the honeypot is well-implemented in preventing unauthorized access through brute force methods, there is still a need to strengthen password complexity and update SSH configurations regularly.
Post-Exploitation
The top post-exploitation commands executed included “uname -s -v -n -r -m” (796x), “cd ~; chattr -ia .ssh;” (44x), and “lockr -ia .ssh;” (44x). These actions suggest that attackers are looking for sensitive information and attempting to establish persistence on the system.
Web Scanning
HTTP requests were made to multiple URLs, including ”/”, “/SDK/webLanguage”, “/favicon.ico”, “/hachk.php”, and “/.well-known/pki-validation/update”. This indicates an ongoing interest in web-based services and possibly a potential misconfiguration that attracts attackers looking for vulnerabilities.
IDS & Scan Intel
Suricata IDS generated 88338 alerts, covering various protocols such as FTP, Telnet, SMTP, MySQL, Redis, Git, VNC, RDP, and HTTP. The high number of events suggests that the honeypot is effectively detecting unusual traffic patterns indicative of potential attacks.
Malware
No malware was captured during this period, which is a positive indicator for the system’s effectiveness in preventing malicious activities despite its high level of security measures.
Tarpit & Backfire Scans
Tarpit protection was successfully implemented with 48 connections being tarpit-protected, and backfire scans were not detected. This suggests that while the honeypot is configured to prevent unauthorized access, attackers are still using various methods to compromise systems without triggering alerts.
TTY Commands
Sessions for “796x”, “44x”, and “20x” commands indicate attempts to escalate privileges through terminal-based commands. The presence of these commands suggests that the honeypot can be used as a testing ground or training environment, but it is also an indication of how attackers might attempt to gain unauthorized access.
Conclusion
The Raspberry Pi 5 honeypot continued to operate effectively in 2026-10-16, with a high volume of activity and sophisticated attacks. The system’s defenses against brute force, post-exploitation activities, web scanning, and malware prevention were robust, yet there is still room for improvement in preventing tarpit protection evasion and detecting backfire scans.
The honeypot remains an excellent tool for researchers and security professionals to understand the tactics used by attackers and refine their defensive strategies. The system’s ability to detect and mitigate threats demonstrates its effectiveness against a wide range of attack vectors, making it an invaluable asset in cybersecurity education and research.
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.