Advanced Persistent Threat Attacks

Advanced Persistent Threat Attacks
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Advanced Persistent Threat Attacks
Prior to carrying out an APT attack, criminals conduct investigations to determine the vulnerabilities that they can exploit to their advantage. The primary focus of the criminals is gaining access to the victim’s system and conducting surveillance on them for a long time undetected. Due to the long duration of surveillance, the criminals can design custom malware for the victim. Financial gain and political espionage are the leading motivation factors for the attacks. The criminals’ main interest is to steal data and use it to their advantage. Initially, the APT attacks were used by nations for surveillance or to steal industrial secrets. However, the attacks are now used to steal data for direct financial gain. The 2010 Stuxnet Worm exemplifies an APT attack. The malware was designed to access Iran’s nuclear system.
The APT attack is believed to have been politically motivated. The secretive data obtained from the attack would help the criminals learn more about the Iranian industrial sector. Described as one of the most sophisticated malware, it was designed to attack Iran’s nuclear power. The complexity of the hacking process indicates that it must have been carried out by nation actors only as they possessed privileged information. One of the most unique aspects about the software was that it targeted computers that were operated offline for security reasons. Instead it infected the USB and spread to Windows, propagating through the systems with time.
The criminals s...