Chapter 3: Anatomy of an Attack

Many people are familiar with reports of attacks that have happened with some details about the extent of the damage resulting from the attack. Most people, however, aren't familiar with the process of how an attack gets from the reconnaissance phase through to the accomplishment of the attacker's final objective. First, we will cover the types of threat actors that exist. Second, we will look in detail at how different types of attacks unfold based on the objective. Understanding the attack techniques and how they vary by objective can help defenders build more meaningful defenses to specific threats. Finally, we will explore the dark web economy for specialized skills that make it easier for unsophisticated actors to launch sophisticated attacks.

Gaining the skills necessary to identify different threat actor groups and the types of attacks they favor will enable you to identify like adversaries you will encounter and defenses to better...