Patent ID: 7117532

Claim:
A method for generating fictitious computer file system content for a computing system configured to provide, to an intruder who has gained or is attempting to gain unauthorized access to a network with which the computing system is associated, a deception environment in which the intruder is allowed to access at least part of the generated fictitious computer file system content to keep the intruder from gaining access to a protected network resource located outside the deception environment, comprising: creating a plurality of templates; providing a collection of data items available to be inserted into the templates; selecting one or more of said templates; and for each template selected: automatically selecting at least one data item from the collection; and populating the template with the at least one data item from the collection; wherein for at least one selected template, selecting the at least one data item is based at least in part on the relative probability of occurrence of the at least one data item to make the deception environment more realistic by ensuring that data items occur with the frequency one would expect in a real, non-deception computing environment associated with network; and intentionally altering at least one populated template to introduce at least one spelling error to make the deception environment appear more realistic by ensuring that at least some of the generated file system content is not entirely free of spelling errors.