Opinion: To thwart hackers, drown them in sweet, sticky, fake data

Hackers. Ugh. The bane of the Internet’s existence. Seems like you can’t even go to the store for toilet paper and laundry detergent without putting your entire financial life in jeopardy.
 
Wouldn’t it be nice to turn the tables on hackers, to make their lives as miserable as they make ours? But how? Bloomberg Businessweek is reporting a couple of computer scientists have figured it out: Give them what they want.
 
Honey Encryption, a software program developed by the scientists, responds to hackers’ incorrect password guesses with what looks to the hackers like accurate data. That swamps hackers with useless information that they have to wade through, a fake credit card number or password at a time. Right now, the concept is only a prototype. They’re still working on getting the software to differentiate between hacking attempts and honest user errors, such as typing your password incorrectly, without getting blocked from your own accounts.

Read more from Bloomberg Businessweek.