Whether you’re a large corporation, a small business, or just an individual trying to protect your privacy, you must be aware of threat actors when spending time online. No matter who you are, there’s always someone waiting in the wings to exploit holes in your cybersecurity strategy — often with devastating consequences.
A threat actor is anyone who aims to cause digital harm and can range from a single bored hacker to a sophisticated online criminal organization. Here’s our comprehensive guide to the different types of threat actors out there and the techniques they use to cause damage online.
What are Threat Actors?
A threat actor is any entity that poses a threat to cybersecurity. Threat actors can be individuals or groups, and they target digital devices, networks, and systems using a variety of different methods.
1. Nation-State Actors
Nation-state threat actors conduct malicious activities on behalf of a specific government or nation-state. They are often professional hackers hired to conduct specific attacks on other countries or organizations. Most nation-state actors are politically or economically motivated.
Motivations and Targets
Nation-state threat actors are particularly dangerous because they are backed by government organizations. This means they have significant financial resources and advanced technological capabilities that individual bad actors would not have.
In many cases, these sophisticated threat actors are politically motivated. For example, they may hack into another country’s critical government infrastructure to conduct espionage, interfere with elections, or gain access to valuable digital assets. They may also target defense contractors or private companies that influence government operations.
For example, Russia and China have both operated as nation-state threat actors against the United States government in the past. In the 2016 and 2020 elections, government-backed Russian hackers conducted a variety of foreign influence activities to sway the outcome. This included spreading misinformation on social media and directly hacking campaigns.
Tactics and Techniques
Nation-state actors use a range of sophisticated techniques to infiltrate government security systems. For example, many state-sponsored cyber threat actors become advanced persistent threats (APTs). This means they remain undetected in a network for an extended period of time, causing long-term damage.
By infiltrating the system for so long, hackers can obtain the information they need to launch sophisticated social engineering strategies or even create custom malware. These multi-step attacks can last months or even years and are very difficult to detect.
These threat actors also rely heavily on supply chain attacks, in which they will target defense contractors and third-party service providers that work with government entities. This technique can undermine entire industries and cause economic damage.
Since nation-state actors threaten national security, potential targets need to implement advanced monitoring, threat intelligence, and intrusion detection systems. Fast incident response is crucial for preventing these external threat actors from harming the general public.
2. Cybercriminals
A cybercriminal is a person who uses computers and digital systems to commit crimes. Some of the most common cyber crimes include credit card fraud, identity theft, and phishing scams. Many cybercriminals operate on their own, but it’s also common for these threat actors to operate as part of organized crime, working together to cause more damage.
Motivations and Targets
Cybercriminals are typically motivated by financial gain, rather than personal grievances or politics. They target both individuals and businesses, using theft, extortion, and other forms of financial fraud to steal funds. Cybercriminals will also steal sensitive data and intellectual property and sell it on the dark web for monetary gain. Many cybercriminals are mass scammers, targeting thousands of people with each campaign.
Many cybercriminals target financial institutions, healthcare providers, and other organizations that store large volumes of sensitive information. In the most serious cases, these attacks can result in millions of dollars in financial losses. They’re often conducted using ransomware, a type of malware that locks sensitive data and holds it for ransom.
There are many tactics that these threat actors use to infiltrate and damage critical systems. They often combine social engineering techniques like phishing attacks with more aggressive strategies like destructive malware.
Evolving Threats and Countermeasures
As technology evolves, cyber criminals adapt their tactics to match. They are constantly looking for ways to bypass security measures and exploit new vulnerabilities.
For example, many hackers have turned to AI tools to make their phishing scams more sophisticated in recent years. Many have also opted for fileless malware rather than traditional malware, which uses legitimate software programs to attack target devices.
To protect your organization from cyber criminals, you’ll need to keep your systems and software updated. Many malicious actors will capitalize on out-of-date systems to launch their attacks. Both desktop and mobile devices should be updated regularly.
Cybersecurity awareness is also highly beneficial for everyone, whether you’re concerned about cyber threats at work or just want to protect your personal information online. Best practices like complex passwords, avoiding suspicious emails, and implementing endpoint protection on your devices create an extra line of defense against these threat actors.
3. Hacktivists and Ideological Actors
While other types of threat actors typically have malicious intent, hacktivists and ideological actors have much different goals. Hacktivists attack specific organizations in order to make a political or social statement. For example, a vegan hacktivist might damage a meat company’s website because it conflicts with their ideology.
Motivations and Targets
Hacktivists target organizations or people that they perceive to oppose their beliefs. These attacks aim to create social change, but this isn’t always the outcome. They often target high-level executives or government officials for visibility.
These threat actors are not to be confused with ethical or white hat hackers. These are hackers that work with organizations to test their approach to cybersecurity, while hacktivists typically work independently and have very different goals.
There are many reasons why a hacktivist might launch these ideological attacks. These include environmental activism, human rights campaigns, or criticism of a specific government or company.
Tactics and Impact
Hacktivist attacks often involve defacing a website to spread a specific messaging, exposing sensitive information, or disrupting critical infrastructure in protest. They will often use distributed denial-of-service attacks to disrupt infrastructure.
Although the attacks aren’t conducted for personal gain, this type of threat actor can be particularly disruptive. They have the power to significantly damage an organization’s reputation and disrupt operations for an extended period of time. Working with a PR professional can help organizations recover their reputation after this type of attack.
Since hacktivists have limited resources, they often exploit security settings or outdated software programs to conduct their attacks. They may also use open-source hacking tools, which can be very powerful despite being free to use.
4. Insiders and Competitors
Internal threat actors (aka insider risks) are people within your organization that use technology to cause harm. This could include current and former employees, contractors, or service providers. Your brand’s competitors can also act as threat actors, using malicious strategies to gain access to systems and steal business strategies or intellectual property.
Insider Threats and Risk Factors
Anyone with legitimate access to your systems and data could become a malicious insider if things go awry. In many cases, these threat actors are disgruntled former employees or contractors who still have access to your systems. This is why it is so important to implement strong access controls and remove former employees from your systems as soon as they leave.
Employees can also be insider threat actors while with the company, especially if they aren’t properly monitored and supported. These insiders sometimes have malicious intent, but threats can also stem from negligence and human error. These negligent insiders often aren’t trained on security policies or choose to ignore them, resulting in the mishandling of important data.
Competitive Intelligence and Corporate Espionage
Competitive intelligence is when a company collects and analyzes information about its direct competitors. While there are ways to collect competitive intelligence ethically, some companies use malicious strategies instead. Threat actors could access valuable trade secrets, financial information, and business strategy by hacking into a competitor’s systems.
Threat actors conducting corporate espionage use a variety of standard hacking techniques, including ransomware campaigns, social engineering, and exploiting security vulnerabilities. However, they may also use insider recruitment strategies, poaching current or former employees to get insider information. In some cases, they may rely on physical proximity to conduct their attacks, using Wi-Fi eavesdropping to spy on users in the same network.
This is why it’s so important for IT teams to regularly monitor the cyber threat landscape and identify corporate espionage risks before they happen. Requiring strict login credentials and multi-factor authentication can help organizations keep these threat actors out.
How Teramind Prevents Insider Threats
Teramind is a leading provider of employee monitoring, insider threat detection, and data loss prevention solutions. Our platform enhances security, productivity, and compliance across organizations by tracking and analyzing user behavior on company networks and devices. This ensures that businesses can safeguard sensitive information while optimizing workforce productivity.
Here’s what you get with Teramind:
- Real-time Employee Activity Monitoring: Teramind offers comprehensive monitoring of employee activities, tracking over 12 types of system objects in real time. This includes web pages, applications, emails, console commands, file transfers, instant messaging, social media, keystrokes, clipboard content, printing activities, and on-screen content through OCR.
- Sensitive Data Classification: Instantly access hundreds of ready-to-use policy templates for classified and sensitive data types like Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Personal Health Information (PHI), Personal Financial Information (PFI), OGD, GSCP, Special codes, etc. Also, Teramind’s user-friendly rule editor allows for creating custom policies and rules, Regular Expressions (RegEx), and specific conditions — all using NLP.
- Audit and Forensics: Teramind provides extensive auditing and investigative features, including video and audio recording of employee activities, session tracking, unchangeable logs, alerts, and optional OCR search capabilities. These features facilitate precise identification and mitigation of insider threats.
- Enterprise Application Monitoring: Teramind allows you to easily monitor enterprise applications to spot unauthorized activities without the need for intricate integrations. It also allows you to forward threat alerts and session logs to external SIEM, threat analytics, and project management systems for additional analysis.
5. Thrill Seekers and Script Kiddies
Thrill seekers and script kiddies are opportunistic threat actors that are usually motivated by boredom. A thrill seeker is someone who hacks into computer systems for fun, while a script kiddie is someone who uses existing scripts to hack into computer systems, rather than writing their own. These types of hackers are often beginners with limited coding skills.
Motivations and Targets
Unlike other types of threat actors, thrill seekers and script kiddies are not typically motivated by political ideologies or financial gain. Instead, they want the notoriety of hacking into the systems of well-known companies. They also enjoy the challenge and may even use these illegal activities as a way to practice their skills.
When conducting attacks, these threat actors typically look for low-hanging fruit, identifying companies or individuals with limited security teams to target. Their cyber activity focuses more on creating chaos than on causing long-term damage. For example, they may use a DDoS attack to flood your site with malicious internet traffic, or gain remote access to your systems to deface your website. These threat actors typically don’t have the skills to conduct complex, attacks on their own, so they’ll rely on existing malicious software and scripts to do the job for them.
Tactics and Impact
While these threat actors may not be the most sophisticated, they can still do damage to your systems. Cybersecurity teams will need to take a proactive approach to keep these hackers at bay. Implementing strong authentication systems with password complexity requirements and regularly conducting software updates will eliminate many vulnerabilities that thrill seekers like to exploit.
Hosting regular security training and awareness programs for employees can also reduce your susceptibility to phishing attempts and other social engineering tactics from these threat actors. Intrusion detection systems with continuous monitoring should also be key components of your security strategy. These programs will help you identify when someone has unauthorized access to your systems so you can respond right away and prevent damage.
The Importance of Understanding Threat Actors
Understanding the cyber threat environment can help your business avoid costly and devastating cyber attacks. Threat awareness is also key for individuals and can help you prevent devastating cyber attacks in both your personal and professional lives.
Identify Potential Threats and Vulnerabilities
Understanding common threat actor targets can help you assess your systems, identify where you’re vulnerable, and implement appropriate security measures. For example, many small businesses don’t take the time to implement software updates and security patches regularly, which could leave them particularly vulnerable to ransomware and DDoS attacks from cybercriminals.
Alternatively, many large corporations are more vulnerable to hacktivism, corporate espionage, or even nation-state actors. Even with a very strong security strategy in place, these large organizations are still vulnerable to phishing emails and other forms of social engineering. In many cases, threat actors will target senior executives or board members.
Analyzing these threats will help you determine the most effective and efficient methods of protecting your systems. This knowledge will also help you identify threats faster when they happen, so you can respond quickly and mitigate damage.
Develop Targeted Security Strategies
Understanding the potential threats to your organization can help you develop precise, tailored cybersecurity strategies that reflect your unique needs. Proactively implementing these strategies will help you avoid operational disruptions, reputational damage, and financial losses.
This is particularly helpful for organizations with limited cybersecurity resources, as you can prioritize the security controls and strategies that are most important for your safety.
FAQs
What are the different types of threat actors?
There are several types of threat actors, including cybercriminals, hacktivists, insider threats, and nation-state actors. Cybercriminals seek financial gain, while hacktivists pursue political agendas. Insider threats involve current or former employees, and nation-state actors target critical infrastructure for geopolitical reasons.
What are threat actor behaviors?
Threat actor behaviors typically follow a pattern known as the cyber kill chain, which includes stages like reconnaissance, weaponization, delivery, and exploitation. These behaviors involve gathering information about targets, preparing attack tools, transmitting malicious payloads, and exploiting vulnerabilities to gain access. The final stages often include establishing persistence, maintaining control, and carrying out the intended malicious activities.
Conclusion
The impact of threat actors should not be understated. So many important aspects of our lives are conducted online these days, and these forms of cyber warfare can be devastating. Putting sophisticated cybersecurity strategies in place can help you stay one step ahead of these threat actors.
