Community Feature - @BushidoToken
A Curated Intelligence staff member - BushidoToken - recently analysed the Mercenary APT threat landscape. These ‘cyber soldiers of fortune’ have increasingly executed attack campaigns on behalf of clients, usually governments, that are looking for surveillance capabilities. Not all countries have the technical capability to launch their own attacks, but many have the financial resources to pay someone who does.
https://www.cyjax.com/2021/10/26/mercenary-apts-an-exploration/
Even though states-sponsored APTs have existed for decades, the capabilities previously uniquely associated with them are more accessible than ever. Specifically, in the case of state-backed APTs, it has become easier to predict which companies and sectors are most likely to be attacked. If the threat landscape is shifting towards the usage of mercenary APTs, where anyone can hire hackers for a broad spectrum of intrusion campaigns, even this minor advantage may have been lost.
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