COUNTERCRAFT

FOR TRICKING HACKERS INTO THINKING THEY’RE ACTUALLY INSIDE

WEEKS BEFORE RUSSIA IN

vaded Ukraine last year, hackers accessed a financial institution’s computers and set them up to initiate a cyberattack on Ukrainian government websites. What the hackers didn’t know: Their efforts took place in a fake network designed as a detection environment by Spanish startup Countercraft, which was able to protect its client’s real computers and share information about the incident with U.S. authorities. “Being weeks ahead of the actual window of attack was a very useful place to be,” says Dan Brett, Countercraft’s cofounder and chief strategy officer. Countercraft’s deception tools turn the tables on hackers, luring them into digital labyrinths that waste their time and reveal their techniques while neutralizing the attack. Honeypots aren’t new to cybersecurity, but Countercraft’s platform takes a more userfriendly approach. It automates the process of laying out breadcrumbs, honeynets, and decoys designed to draw attackers into facsimiles of critical networks and allows defenders to analyze their behavior, engage with them to extract more information, and map out potential future targets in real time. To make it easier for clients to employ these techniques, last year Countercraft launched the Service, offering pre-built deception environments tailored to a dozen sectors. Big finance and energy companies are increasingly turning to Countercraft, Brett says. But so far the most fervent adopters have come from the worlds of defense and intelligence—countercraft inked a $26 million agreement in 2022 to bring its platform to an alphabet soup of civil and defense agencies.