Threat Actors and APTs
Common Threat Actors
What are Threats?
A threat is a danger that can be exploited in a vulnerability.
What are Threat Actors
This is an actor who generates adverse effects on an organization.
Actor Categorization
Cyber Criminals
Hackers or crackers who are looking to make money off malicious and illegal activity.
Very varied skill levels
Nation States
These are government backed hacking groups. These have a very high level of technical sophistication and resources. These can be referred to as APTs or Advanced Persistent Threats.
Hacktivists
These are individuals or groups that are socially or politically motivated and use cyber attacks to express their view or beliefs.
Insider Threat
These are people who are intentionally or unintentionally abusing their power and knowledge of an organisation. They often leak classified information.
Actor Motivations
Financial motives - making money for either themselves, groups or government/companies
Political Motives- often governments attacking enemy governments. Could also be hacktivists who don't agree with something political or want to try and get a particular candidate elected.
Social Motives - usually individuals who want to make a statement or gain a reputation.
Unknown Motives - motives of the hacker are not clear.
Naming Conventions
Different vendors use different naming conventions
Crowdstrike use animals to categorise a group or different nation states
Mandiant uses a code numbering system E.G. APT1, APT2…
What are APTs
Advanced Persistent threats
Most feared security concern
Groups of highly skilled hackers
Can deliver maximum long lasting damage to companies and corporations
APTs have a huge amount of funding and resources.
They focus on financial, political or military targets
They use advanced tools, attack frameworks, malware and exploits.
There attacks are often long term and nee maintained access to the network
TTP
Tools Techniques and procedures
These are actions attackers take when conducting cyber attacks.
Used by the blue team to track different tactics which are being utilised.
Mitre att&ck framework splits these down into 12 categories:
Initial Access
Execution
Persistence
Privilege Escalation
Defence Evasion
Credential Access
Discovery
Lateral Movement
Collection
Command and Control
Exfiltration
Impact
Last updated