Anatomy of an advanced persistent threat

Often when a business is the subject of a hacking attack, emotions run high. The knee jerk reaction is one that comes from an emotional place – ‘how could someone do this to me?’ or ‘who is responsible?’. And ultimately, the organisation wants the infiltrator out. However, once the background to nation-state hacking is understood and how these types of attacks operate, what's needed is a change in the mind-set about how we protect IT to a reasoned and rational approach that sees attacks as part and parcel of doing business. The rise in well-resourced and sustained cyber-attacks, which are often the work of nation-state actors, calls for a new mind-set when it comes to protecting your organisation. It's important not to have a knee-jerk reaction. Sometimes it's better not to rid the network of the malware and the attackers straight away, but to monitor and analyse what they are doing. Mike Auty of MWR InfoSecurity explains the best approach with the help of two case studies.