A 20-unit residential network had disruptions. The property owner knew. CCC dug in, found the root cause, rebuilt it right — and HoneyTrap Pro™ revealed what had been hiding inside the network the whole time.
“43,183 attacks logged.
The network was under siege — and nobody knew it.”
TBL Apartments is a 20-unit residential complex on a managed network provided by Cross Country Communications Corp. (CCC). Like every multi-tenant residential deployment, it runs a mix of personal devices, streaming boxes, gaming consoles, and smart home equipment — none with enterprise endpoint protection.
The network experienced disruptions. The property owner knew. This is not a case study where everything went perfectly — it's the case study where CCC found out exactly what was wrong, fixed it the right way, and came out the other side with documented proof of what had been happening the whole time.
Three incidents. Root cause identified. Full remediation executed. Here's the complete picture.
Residential networks are soft targets. Tenants connect personal devices with no endpoint protection, no patch management, and no monitoring. Without visibility tools in place, suspicious traffic on these networks goes completely undetected — no alerts, no logs, no indication anything is happening.
During the initial deployment period, HoneyTrap Pro™ logged two categories of traffic carrying signatures consistent with lateral movement activity: SMB enumeration and Telnet probes targeting internal IP ranges. These are patterns associated with reconnaissance and pivoting attempts — traffic that has no legitimate place on a residential network.
After the network rebuild and proper isolation, this traffic stopped. March data confirmed clean — only external scanning from known internet threat actors, all now blocked automatically at the firewall on first contact.
| Service | Events | Behavior Pattern | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMB (Port 445) | 971 | Enumerate shares, map internal hosts | Suspicious Traffic |
| Telnet (Port 23) | 3,218 | Probe internal IP ranges for open services | Suspicious Traffic |
4,189 events carrying lateral movement signatures. Logged and classified during the initial deployment period. Gone after the remediation.
Without HoneyTrap Pro™, this traffic would have been completely invisible. No alert. No log. No indication anything was happening. The data existed — CCC just finally had the tools to see it.
The majority of logged traffic was external — automated scanning, brute force, and exploitation attempts from known threat actors across multiple countries. These attacks never reached a real device. HoneyTrap Pro™ caught them in a controlled, isolated environment and fired automated responses immediately.
Attacks were not a one-time scan. The HoneyTrap Pro™ recorded consistent daily probing activity across the full 30-day period, with sustained high-volume campaigns originating from a small number of repeat offenders. The pattern is consistent with automated botnets conducting credential stuffing and remote access exploitation.
In addition to the HoneyTrap Pro™ services, CCC deployed six canary token files on the network — bait documents designed to trigger an immediate alert the moment any attacker opens or accesses them. These files are indistinguishable from real sensitive documents, making them an ideal early-warning system for insider threats and post-breach lateral movement.
A rebuilt network, a documented root cause, and 30+ days of stable operation — plus complete visibility into threats that had been invisible from day one.
They just don't know it yet. Deploy HoneyTrap Pro™ and find out what's really hitting their networks.