What is a threat actor? - definition, types and more | USA test point (2023)

cyberterrorists

Cyberterrorists primarily target companies, governments or a country's infrastructure. They are named for the disruption these threat actors can inflict on entire communities. A cyberterrorist's goal is often to harm a country's citizens and businesses, resulting in physical and economic harm.

State-sponsored actors

Like cyberterrorists, state-sponsored threat actors are typically supported and paid by a country's government to attack an opposing country's infrastructure. The difference between a cyberterrorist and a state-sponsored threat actor is that a state-sponsored threat actor typically wants to blackmail a government or steal protected secrets. could usedata theftor rootkits to gain remote control of critical machines used to run the infrastructure. State-sponsored actors also target companies and providers that support state infrastructure and aim to disrupt productivity.

Hacktivists

Hackers sometimes target governments and corporations because they oppose the ideology of their target. Anonymous is a popular hacktivist group made up of people from around the world, but other hacktivists can also work alone. These threat actors are often not financially motivated and seek to damage data or infrastructure for political reasons. These can be internal or external threats focused on performing malicious activities and disrupting normal business productivity.

initiated

Many companies make the mistake of entrusting all work to employees or contractors. for example oneinternal threatit could be a recently disgruntled employee or a person intentionally targeting a company or government. Governments or competing companies pay insider trading to steal intellectual property and trade secrets, but some insider threats are simply aimed at hurting your employer. Insider threats have become more prevalent in recent years, cause the most damage and are the hardest to detect because they have legitimate access to infrastructure and data.

scripts for children

Not all threat actors are experienced attackers. Many scripts, code repositories, and malware are free to download and use by anyone. Threat actors are called script kiddies because they often don't know how to code or exploit vulnerabilities. Even without programming and hacking skills, script kiddies can undermine a company's productivity and private data. A kiddie script can also unknowingly add malware to the environment, believing it will download tools it can control.

Internal user errors

Inside threat actors don't always have malicious intent, but their damage can be as dire as a deliberate attack on the organization. Accidental damage from an insider threat is often associated with phishing. External attackers send phishing emails to insiders, tricking them into opening a malicious attachment or accessing a webpage that tricked a victimized employee into revealing their credentials. Because the employee has legitimate access to the data, insider threat actors can expose a large amount of sensitive data to an attacker.

The type of threat actor targeting your organization also has specific motivations. Motivation may not seem important when building a security infrastructure, but understanding the attackers will help you develop better planning. The security tools you install are designed to block specific attacks and target specific threat actors.

For many attackers, the focus is on financial gain. Ransomware is a valuable tool for threat actors to extort money from targeted companies and governments. Ransomware targeting individuals can demand a few hundred dollars worth of bitcoin, while ransomware targeting corporations and governments often demand payments in the millions. Once ransomware encrypts files, companies cannot recover their data without paying the ransom or restoring files from backups. Ransomware is widespread and effective, so a security infrastructure must be in place to detect and stop ransomware.

Political motivation drives state-sponsored attackers and cyberterrorists. These motives can be an element of financial gain, but the main purpose is to disrupt commercial services and harm governments. Attackers are often located outside of the target country, making them difficult to track down, investigate, and prosecute.

Some attackers do this just for fun or for research purposes. Finding vulnerabilities in software is a task for some threat actors, but these white hat hackers will not intentionally cause harm. White hat hackers notify organizations when a vulnerability is found to help them identify problems and patch their systems before attackers steal data. Attackers who do this for fun use the same methods as other attackers, but they can do enough damage to impact business productivity.

Threat actors who hack for fun may also want to be known so they can be more easily targeted if they leave a calling card. Others do it out of revenge, which can lead to better identification if the attacker makes mistakes and leaves an audit trail. Most attackers try to hide their activities, but attackers seeking revenge or notoriety may intentionally leave behind information about themselves.

Motivations can also overlap. State-sponsored attackers may do so for political reasons, but they may also seek financial gain. Ransomware can extort millions of dollars from businesses and governments, but it also saps business productivity and can cripple governments for weeks.

Since most attacks are financially motivated, threat actors target deep-pocketed corporations and governments to pay ransoms or recover their data. Some threat actors target individuals, but these attacks are based on volume rather than high-quality, high-revenue businesses.

Attackers know that individuals have less money than companies. Most attacks, like ransomware, target individuals and demand small amounts of money. Threat actors also target individuals for financial data or identity theft. Businesses and individuals need to be aware of the threats, but businesses are particularly targeted by major data breaches and large ransom payments.

Businesses large and small are the target of threats. Unlike individuals, organizations also have numerous employees and contractors who contribute to privacy risk due to human error. Insider threats often cause a data breach or ransomware infection, but external threat actors using multiple vectors are also a cause of data breaches.

Threat actors take longer to target specific organizations and often use reconnaissance to gather information about a target before launching an attack. For example, threat actors useidentity theftTechniques to increase your chances of compromising a highly privileged user account or tricking an accountant into sending money to the attacker. An attacker can be a disgruntled employee, an employee being paid by a competitor to steal data, or an outside threat trying to commit a data breach.

Governments are targeted by state-sponsored threat actors who exploit the same vulnerabilities as corporate threat actors, but these attackers are better funded and often work in groups. They are just as dangerous and can lead to severe government agency closures with the aim of disrupting the country's infrastructure and harming residents.

Security infrastructure is expensive, but becoming a victim of a data breach is even more expensive. Most companies store customer information and have at least one compliance policy they must follow. Failure to comply will result in high costs of paying fines if the company is a victim of adata leakan unsupported vulnerability. Most compliance regulations require organizations to have a reasonably secure infrastructure in place to protect consumer data.

Loss of data and paying for data breaches aren't the only consequences of ignoring threat actors. After a data breach, damage to your brand can have long-term consequences. If consumers lose trust in their brand, the company could see a drop in sales and a loss in customer loyalty.litigationthe costs are also long-term, as collective and consumer litigation is a real possibility. These lawsuits can continue for years after the initial data breach.

privacyrequires daily updates and ongoing maintenance. Cybersecurity infrastructure needs to be kept up to date as the cybersecurity landscape changes daily and threat actors constantly change their methods to defeat current defenses.threat intelligence systemsfocus on the evolution of cybersecurity and changes in threat actor methods. These systems are an integral part of any organization's proper defenses to ensure their data is protected from current and future threats.

Administrators can take several steps to stop threat actors and the data-stealing attacks they launch. Some ways organizations can use Proofpoint to help:

• Education:Employees need to know what to look for when they receive suspicious emailsSecurity awareness training programsare a great way to do this. Training employees to identify threat actors, malicious messages, and malicious websites helps them learn how to avoid interacting with them.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA):Threat actors focus many of their initial attacks on phishing emails. If an employee falls for a phishing attack and reveals their credentials, MFA will prevent an attacker from continuing their campaign.
• Network monitoring:Monitoring tools are required for some compliance standards, but they also play a critical role in a proactive cybersecurity infrastructure. Monitoring employee activity will deter insider threat actors with malicious intentions or mistakes.
• Detection and prevention of intruders:Automated AI-powered tools monitor an organization's environment and automatically contain a threat before it becomes a data breach.

Proofpoint offers several services that track threat actors and monitor their environment and activities. test pointProtection against targeted attacks(TAP) provides insight into an organization's environment, an attacker's goals (e.g., deploying ransomware or attempting to gain access to endpoints), an attacker's technique (e.g., an attack macro or script, PowerShell) and progress (e.g. employees click on a malicious file). Connection).

Managed Services provide organizations with enterprise-class Security Operations Center capabilities that enable administrators to protect against external and internal threats. Technology is just one component of good cybersecurity. Good experts and analysts are needed to configure the technology, maintain it and respond to alerts. Proofpoint gives your organization the technology to stop threats and train employees to manage their cybersecurity infrastructure.