Abstract: Described herein are systems and methods for generating a cyber-deception strategy that adaptively implement a decoy file placement strategy for thwarting malicious activity on a computing network. The systems and methods can include a plurality of surveillance services that can monitor the evolving conditions and states of a target computing network. The information from the external surveillance services can be combined with one or more user defined parameters to serve as inputs to a system that can use the input data to generate a decoy file content and placement strategy so as to effect a cyber-deception strategy. In one or more examples, can identify one or more target objects to use as decoys and use the identified targeted objects as well as information about the target network, to generate a high-level guidelines that will be used to generate one or more deception plans for implementation on the target network.