ASTER—Active Smart Targets for Effective Response

ATC-NY developed ASTER, a system to identify attackers by feeding them traceable information during exploratory probes. When attackers use the information in later attack stages, ASTER connects the two stages and assesses the attack. ATC-NY has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of ASTER with an initial prototype. ATC-NY has enhanced the types of information gathered about attackers by building a pre-production prototype and deploying a large-scale evaluation in a realistic test-bed.

ASTER has also been used to study probes (scans) and attacks on "black space," empty Internet address space, all packets which can be assumed to be malicious.