

The email may seem to come from a team member and include references to an ongoing project. Email attacks that target specific individuals are called “spear-phishing.” One indication of an APT is a phishing email that selectively targets high-level individuals like senior executives or technology leaders, often using information obtained from other team members that have already been compromised. In the first phase, advanced persistent threats often gain access through social engineering techniques. Most APTs follow the same basic life cycle of infiltrating a network, expanding access and achieving the goal of the attack, which is most commonly stealing data by extracting it from the network. To prevent, detect and resolve an APT, you must recognize its characteristics. Cyber Espionage, including theft of intellectual property or state secrets.The goals of APTs fall into four general categories: They’ve spent significant time and resources researching and identifying vulnerabilities within the organization. Adversaries are typically well-funded, experienced teams of cybercriminals that target high-value organizations.


An APT attack is carefully planned and designed to infiltrate a specific organization, evade existing security measures and fly under the radar.Įxecuting an APT attack requires a higher degree of customization and sophistication than a traditional attack. An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a sophisticated, sustained cyberattack in which an intruder establishes an undetected presence in a network in order to steal sensitive data over a prolonged period of time.
