Attributes of Actors (Threat Actors, Intelligence Sources, & Vulnerabilities)

Question 1

Attributes of Actors

Answer 1

Internal or external and –structured or unstructured

Intent and motivation

Sophistication levels or skillsets

Threat event frequency
–How often are they going to deliver the payload or take advantage of the exploit against your vulnerability

Resources and funding

Question 2

Structured Attack

Answer 2

Planned

Organized

Persistent
–it’s a multi-phased attack where the threat agent will attempt multiple threat vectors to deliver their payload

Multi-phased/ Polymorphic

Can internal or external
–privileged insider or a temporary worker or a contractor, or it could be an external attacker. Someone tried to breach your firewall system or leverage e-mail or messaging.

Exploit kits, malware campaigns, zero-day code, modules and scripts and ransomware

Question 3

Unstructured Attack

Answer 3

Accidental
–could be done drive-by web surfing, casually clicking on hyperlinks in web pages, ignoring the acceptable used policy or non adherence.

Non-malicious
–Rarely malicious intent

Drive-by web surfing
–Casually clicking on hyperlinks in web pages ignoring the acceptable used policy or non adherence

No AUP
–Ignoring the acceptable used policy or non adherence

Poor awareness
-No security awareness training and ongoing awareness

E-mail and webmail
–Poor usage of e-mail and web mail

USB and personal electronics
–No policies for external drives like USB drives. FireWire drives, personal electronics, PDAs, cell phones’ pads entering and exiting the organization

Question 4

Intent and Motivation

Threat Severity

Answer 4

Notoriety
–just basically trying to get notoriety, maybe getting their name or their hacker group assigned to some worm or virus

Fame
–The notoriety led to fame with more advanced viruses and malware, hacktivism groups, hacker groups, for example, the aforementioned cult of the dead cow

Financial
–There are huge financial incentives for data breaches, stealing credit cards, identity theft, World War C, political motivations, organized crime and rogue states