What if attackers are already inside your network—and you don’t even know it?
Traditional security focuses on keeping threats out, but sophisticated attackers no longer wait at the gate. They bypass perimeter defenses, blend into normal traffic, and quietly navigate toward your critical assets—undetected for weeks or even months.
Every minute they remain hidden, they gather intelligence, install backdoors, and move closer to breaching your most sensitive data. On average, it takes 277 days to detect a breach—by then, the damage is already done.
Fidelis Deception flips the script. It transforms your network from a passive target into an active defense system that detects post-breach activity nine times faster. Instead of reacting after the fact, you expose attackers in real time—drawing them into high-fidelity traps that reveal their intent before they reach anything valuable.
Why do Traditional Defenses Fail to Reduce the Attack Surface?
Traditional security tools are struggling to keep up with today’s fast, complex, and borderless threat landscape where they fall short and how Fidelis Deception closes the gap.
Reason 1# The Insufficiency of Traditional Security Approache
Today’s networks stretch across clouds, mobile devices and IoT, with attackers probing every gap faster than ever. Organizations pour resources into perimeter defenses only to watch sophisticated threats slip through unseen. Reliance on signature-based tools leaves zero-day and novel tactics undetected. Delays between vulnerability discovery and patch deployment amplify risk and cost.
It fails because:
preset rules can’t catch unknown attack methods
signature databases lag behind emerging threats
siloed tools overlook lateral movement
static policies ignore dynamic network changes
boundary-focused models miss internal compromises
Reason 2# The Speed Gap Between Attacks and Defenses
Breaches can happen in under a minute, yet alerts often arrive after significant damage is done. Every second of delay gives attackers time to escalate privileges, move laterally and exfiltrate data. Human-driven triage and response workflows buckle under the pace of modern threat campaigns. Static detection thresholds create blind spots during rapid attack surges.
It fails because:
manual investigations can’t keep up with real-time breaches
alert overload buries critical warnings
rigid thresholds ignore context shifts
slow update cycles leave rules outdated
lack of automated playbooks delays containment
Reason 3# Visibility Challenges in Complex Environments
Hybrid estates, shadow IT and sprawling microservices create countless blind spots for security teams. With 40% of CISOs fearing obsolescence within two years, the pressure to maintain comprehensive coverage has never been higher. Disparate tools generate noisy, fragmented data that’s impossible to correlate in real time. Every unmanaged asset becomes a potential foothold for attackers to hide and spread undetected.
It fails because:
tool sprawl fragments visibility across silos
shadow IT goes unmonitored by standard scanners
resource-constrained teams can’t investigate every alert
legacy platforms struggle with cloud-native architectures
lack of unified telemetry obscures the full attack picture
A Quick Overview of the Challenges Vs Solution
ChallengeHow Fidelis Solves it
Traditional defenses rely on outdated perimeter models.
They depend on rules and signatures, leaving gaps against novel attacks, especially in cloud, mobile, and IoT environments.Transforms security from passive to proactive.
Deploys realistic decoys across the network to detect both known and unknown threats through attacker interaction—regardless of network complexity or boundaries.Attackers move faster than traditional defenses can respond.
With breaches occurring in under 2 minutes, delayed alerts give attackers time to escalate and exfiltrate.Deliver real-time, high-fidelity detection.
Places high-interaction decoys that instantly alert on malicious activity, reducing time-to-detection and turning attacker speed into a disadvantage.Security teams lack visibility across complex, hybrid environments.
Shadow IT and distributed systems create blind spots that traditional tools can’t monitor effectively.Extends visibility across all environments.
Deploys tailored deception assets in cloud, on-prem, and hybrid setups—detecting threats even in unmanaged or shadow IT spaces.
Step by Step Guide To Implement Fidelis Deception as a Moving Target for Attackers
A good deception strategy needs careful planning to create a moving target that frustrates attackers. Fidelis Deception makes this possible through a systematic approach that gives defenders the security advantage.
Step 1. Network Mapping for Strategic Deception Placement
How It Works: The process begins with comprehensive network infrastructure mapping to identify critical assets, potential attack vectors, and normal traffic patterns. Security teams analyze user behaviors and system relationships to understand the network landscape. This foundational knowledge guides the placement of deception assets along likely attack paths, ensuring attackers encounter fake systems before reaching valuable targets.
FIDELIS Solution: Fidelis Deception automates the network mapping process, continuously discovering and analyzing network infrastructure to identify optimal deception placement points. It provides visual mapping tools that highlight critical assets and recommends strategic locations for deception deployment, ensuring maximum coverage with minimal resource investment.
Step 2. Creating Convincing Deception Assets
The authenticity of decoys directly impacts detection effectiveness. Unconvincing decoys are ignored by sophisticated attackers, creating a false sense of security. Realistic decoys dramatically increase detection speed by attracting attackers’ attention while virtually eliminating false positives—when legitimate users have no reason to interact with decoys, any interaction reliably indicates malicious activity.
How It Works: Effective deception requires creating assets that mirror production environments, including matching operating systems, realistic network services, convincing content (including credentials), and proper network positioning. These assets function as tripwires, triggering immediate alerts when touched while remaining invisible to legitimate users.
FIDELIS Solution: Fidelis Deception automatically generates highly convincing decoys that match your production environment. It deploys deception points with realistic configurations, services, and content that appear valuable to attackers. The platform ensures proper integration with existing systems while maintaining clear separation from legitimate user activities.
Step 3. Dynamic Deception Through Automated Rotation
Static deception environments become ineffective as sophisticated attackers learn to recognize and avoid known decoys. Dynamic rotation significantly reduces risk by preventing attackers from building accurate maps of your environment over time. This approach increases detection speed by forcing attackers to interact with new deception assets whenever they attempt reconnaissance.
How It Works: The deception landscape changes continuously through automated rotation of decoys and credentials. This creates an ever-changing environment where attackers never encounter the same setup twice, forcing them to reveal themselves by interacting with unfamiliar assets during reconnaissance and lateral movement attempts.
FIDELIS Solution: Fidelis Deception automated rotation capability continuously refreshes the deception environment according to configurable schedules. It manages credential rotation, changes network configurations, and updates decoy systems—all while maintaining convincing relationships between assets. This dynamic approach prevents attacker adaptation while minimizing the operational burden on security teams.
Stay ahead of adversaries with Fidelis Deception technology.
Detect attacker movement early
Deploy authentic endpoint breadcrumbs
Scale without alert fatigue
Checklist: How Fidelis Deception Turns Risk into Intelligence
Fidelis Deception doesn’t just detect threats—it transforms attacker activity into actionable intelligence. Use this checklist to see how it strengthens your security posture at every stage.
1. Reveal Attacker Behavior Through Deception
Analyze normal network traffic to establish a behavioral baseline
Deploy decoys that accurately reflect your production environment
Strategically position deception assets based on asset risk and attack paths
Use breadcrumbs to guide attackers toward decoys
Divert attacker activity away from real assets into monitored traps
2. Convert Attacker Movements Into Intelligence
Identify and prioritize high-value, high-risk assets as intelligence points
Deploy fake users and decoys for databases, applications, and Active Directory
Serve controlled, false information to attackers through decoys
Capture attacker interactions to gain insight into their methods and objectives
3. Accelerate Threat Detection and Response
Detect post-breach activity significantly faster than traditional tools
Integrate deception alerts with endpoint and network security systems
Enable automated detection and response workflows
Collect session-level metadata using Deep Session Inspection®
Leverage rich context to quickly understand and contain threats
Get the technical blueprint to trap attackers early and reduce alert fatigue. What’s Inside the Whitepaper?
Deception v/s Honeypots
Strategies to Disrupt Lateral Movement
Strategies to Reduce Dwell Time
Take Action Today
Fidelis Deception empowers your security team with an advanced layer of defense that not only detects threats early but provides invaluable intelligence about attacker tactics and techniques. By implementing our deception technology, you’ll significantly reduce dwell time, minimize potential damage from breaches, and gain a decisive advantage over adversaries. Our solution seamlessly integrates with your existing security infrastructure while requiring minimal resources to maintain, delivering immediate ROI and long-term protection for your most critical assets.
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