Joseph Menn of Reuters reports that some U.S. firms are fighting back against hackers in unorthodox – if not downright illegal – ways:
“Not only do we put out the fire, but we also look for the arsonist,” said Shawn Henry, the former head of cybercrime investigations at the FBI who in April joined new cyber security company CrowdStrike, which aims to provide clients with a menu of active responses.
Once a company detects a network breach, rather than expel the intruder immediately, it can waste the hacker’s time and resources by appearing to grant access to tempting material that proves impossible to extract. Companies can also allow intruders to make off with bogus files or “beacons” that reveal information about the thieves’ own machines, experts say.
Henry and CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovich do not recommend that companies try to breach their opponent’s computers, but they say the private sector does need to fight back more boldly against cyber espionage.
Read more on Reuters.