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Threat Actor Criminal Profiles | Preventing Terrorist Cyber Activity

September 21, 2020

The world we live in today is becoming more and more digital. Accordingly, most companies are trying to transfer their operations and form a strong presence in the online world. The global epidemic that erupted last fall further accelerated the process. Therefore, those companies that have not yet or have entered the online race late are doomed.

On top of that, companies that have been successful in their digitalization have been facing dangerous and difficult problems in the last few years.

These are various types of malware attacks on companies and their confidential information. Successful defense against them implies prior good knowledge of those who would damage the company’s image. These types of people, hackers are often called threat actors. Depending on what their goal is, by what means they plan to achieve those goals, and who is behind them, we distinguish several basic types of criminal profiles of threat actors.

We will divide the list into four main categories starting from the most dangerous types of threat actors to the less dangerous ones:

1)    Government-sponsored threat actors

As the name suggests, this type of hacker is supported by the authorities of a certain country. In accordance with that, the resources that these threat actors have at their disposal are huge, and the goal of the attack is always clearly defined at the very beginning. The victims are usually institutions of other countries or large and well-known companies where strictly confidential data is to be extracted, whether they are from the military, economic, health, or some other sector. The dangers lie in the very nature of the attack, which is extremely difficult to notice, so these attacks can go unnoticed for months.

All this, the means at their disposal, the sharpness, and precision of the attacks they perform as well as the importance of the information they extract make this type of threat actor by far the most dangerous. Logically, to prevent terrorist cyber activity from this group of hackers is the hardest thing to do.

2)    Organized threat actors criminals

The second force to be reckoned with is organized crime. As it used to be the slave trade, then the arms and drug trade, today the gold mines for criminals are cyber attacks. The goal is always the same, money. Therefore, the most common goals are credit cards, banking information, or social security numbers. The damage that these hacker groups do is measured in millions and often billions of dollars.

3)    Hacktivist

The last two groups are significantly more heterogeneous than the first two. Also, unlike the second group, the third group on this list differs in the motives for carrying out the attacks. Money is therefore not the main driver but a certain political, cultural, and even environmental agenda. The main victims are therefore different governments or corporations with whose policies hackers strongly disagreed.

4)    Insider Threat

The last group does not include only threat agents who are resentful towards the company in which they work. Probably a bigger problem is those workers of companies who, through their carelessness and negligence, led to the leakage of confidential information. Education and strict control over employees is one of the most effective ways to reduce such events, if not completely, at least to reduce them in the future.

Preventing Cyber Threats

Cyber terrorism has never been more dangerous and common than in recent months. The attacks have almost doubled compared to the previous year, so it became an existential question for companies to stop such a strong and branched today’s digital cyber terrorism. These cybercrimes will never stop so you need an effective way to protect your company’s image. Cobwebs cyber terrorism prevention solutions deploy necessary measures to make sure that your company is completely safe from any type of threat actors.

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