AI-Powered Cyber Deception with Acalvio: Smarter Defense, Less Effort

This article explores how Acalvio uses AI to deliver smarter, scalable, and more effective deception.

Why AI Matters for Deception

Traditional deception technologies were powerful but difficult to manage, requiring manual setup, deep expertise, and constant tuning. In contrast, Acalvio's AI-powered deception automates and optimizes every step of the process. The result: more realistic decoys, faster detection, and minimal administrative overhead.

Smarter Deception Design with Pre-Attack Visibility

Deception only works when it’s placed where attackers are likely to go. ShadowPlex uses AI to analyze your environment before an attack happens, identifying potential attack paths and vulnerabilities. A good example is Active Directory (AD) Insights, which evaluates over 150 AD misconfigurations, such as over-permissioned accounts and Kerberoastable services that attackers could exploit. Based on this analysis, ShadowPlex recommends and places deceptions where they will be most effective.

Automated, Realistic Deception Recommendations

Manually crafting believable decoys is time-consuming and error-prone. For example, configuring a single AD user object involves managing over 100 attributes, some with complex bitmask values. ShadowPlex solves this with an AI-powered recommendation engine. It learns from your production environment and generates realistic values for decoys: hostnames, operating systems, services, ports, and AD attributes—all aligned with your organization’s structure. This ensures attackers see the deceptions as legitimate, increasing the likelihood of engagement.

Smarter Alerts, Not Just More Alerts

In large environments, one attack can trigger dozens of deception alerts. ShadowPlex applies machine learning and threat analytics to triage and correlate these events automatically, prioritizing what matters most to your SOC team. It summarizes incidents around real targets under threat (not just decoys) and integrates context from EDR tools. It also maps attacker behavior to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, enabling SOC teams to apply their existing incident response playbooks without delay.

High-Interaction Decoys Powered by LLMs

To engage advanced attackers and gather threat intelligence, Acalvio creates realistic, high-interaction decoys. These are enriched using Large Language Models (LLMs) to reflect your industry’s context and mimic real assets. By generating tailored content for fake systems, databases, and file shares, these decoys fool even sophisticated adversaries, encouraging them to interact, reveal their tactics, and give defenders early warning.

Advanced Threat Analytics and Forensics

Once an attacker is detected, a quick and precise investigation is crucial. ShadowPlex delivers:

• Endpoint forensics with ML-enhanced analysis to identify persistence mechanisms
• PowerShell script and log analysis that flags obfuscated or modified scripts, including variants of known tools like PowerSploit and Empire

These capabilities help defenders respond faster and with greater accuracy, even against stealthy or unknown attack techniques.

The Bottom Line: AI Makes Deception Practical and Powerful

Acalvio’s ShadowPlex, distributed by Softprom, redefines cyber deception with AI at its core. From attack surface discovery to automated decoy placement, from intelligent triage to realistic adversary engagement—AI makes deception more scalable, effective, and actionable than ever before. In today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, proactive defense is no longer optional. With Acalvio, organizations can stay a step ahead, detecting and disrupting attackers before damage is done.

Want to See AI-Powered Deception in Action?

Contact Softprom to learn how Acalvio can help your organization strengthen its cybersecurity posture with intelligent, low-noise, high-fidelity deception.