Читать книгу Cybersecurity For Dummies - Joseph Steinberg - Страница 80

When it comes to targeted attacks, successfully breaching any systems not on the target list isn’t considered even a minor success.

For example, if a Russian operative is assigned the mission to hack into the Democratic and Republican parties’ email systems and steal copies of all the email on the parties’ email servers, the mission is going to be deemed a success only if the operative achieves those exact aims. If the operative manages to steal $1 million from an online bank using the same hacking techniques that were directed at the targets, it will not change a failure to breach the intended targets into even a small success. Likewise, if the goal of an attacker launching a targeted attack is to take down the website of a former employer the attacker had issues with, taking down other websites doesn’t accomplish anything in the attacker’s mind.

Because such attackers need to breach their targets no matter how well defended those parties may be, targeted attacks often utilize advanced attack methods — for example, exploiting vulnerabilities not known to the public or to the vendors who would need to fix them.

As you may surmise, advanced targeted attacks are typically carried out by parties with much greater technical prowess than those who carry out opportunistic attacks. Often, but not always, the goal of targeted attacks is to steal data undetected or to inflict serious damage — not to make money. After all, if one’s goal is to make money, why expend resources targeting a well-defended site? Take an opportunistic approach and go after the most poorly defended, relevant sites.

Some advanced threats that are used in targeted attacks are described as advanced persistent threats (APTs):

 Advanced: Uses advanced hacking techniques, likely with a major budget to support R&D

 Persistent: Keeps trying different techniques to breach a targeted system and won’t move on to target some other system just because the initial target is well protected

 Threat: Has the potential to inflict serious damage