Today's threats

The threat landscape within the cyber world is extremely diverse and is continually becoming more complex. The task of protecting users, data, and systems is becoming more difficult and requires the advancement of even more intelligent tools to keep the bad actors out. Today, criminals are more sophisticated, and large groups have formed with significant financial backing to support the wrongdoings of these groups. The following is a list of cyber threats:

• National governments
• Nationstates
• Terrorists
• Spies
• Organized crime groups
• Hacktivists
• Hackers
• Business competitors
• Insiders/internal employees

  Tip

  To learn more about these cyber threat sources, the Department of Homeland Security has a great reference here: https://www.us-cert.gov/ics/content/cyber-threat-source-descriptions.

To shed some light on real-world examples of data breach sources today, Verizon has created a 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report (https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/reports/dbir/). The report is built on a set of real-world data and contains some eye-opening data on attack sources:

• External actors: 70%
• Organized criminal groups: 55%
• Internal actors: 30%
• Partners: 1%
• Multiple parties involved: 1%

The full report can be found here:

https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/reports/2020-data-breach-investigations-report.pdf

There are many types of cyberattacks in the world today, and this creates a diverse set of challenges for organizations. While not all threats are Windows-specific, there's a chance that Windows is the median or attack vector in which an attacker gains access by exploiting a vulnerability. An example of this could be an unpatched OS or an out-of-date application. The following list contains many common types of threats that could cause damage directly from a vulnerability within the Windows OS or by using the Windows OS as an attack vector.

Malware is software or code designed with malicious intent that exploits vulnerabilities found within the system. The following types of threats are considered malware:

• Adware
• Spyware
• Virus (polymorphic, multipartite, macro, or boot sector)
• Worm
• Trojan
• Rootkit
• Bots/botnets
• Ransomware
• Logic bomb

In addition to malware, the following are types of attack techniques that can be used to exploit vulnerabilities:

• Keylogger
• Phishing
• Spear phishing
• Whale phishing
• SQL injection attack
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
• Denial of Service (DoS)
• Session hijacking
• Man-in-the-Middle Attacks (MITM)
• Password attacks (brute-force, dictionary, or birthday attacks)
• Credential reuse
• Identity theft
• Advanced persistent threats
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
• Intellectual property theft
• Shoulder surfing
• Golden Ticket: Kerberos attacks

  Tip

  To learn more about the threats listed earlier, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) contains a glossary that provides more information on most, if not all, of the preceding list: https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary.