From the previous tutorials, we got knowledge about the internet and the attacks happening in cyberspace, also about cybercrimes. Now we are discussing the different kinds of people who are behind these cyber-attacks and cybercrimes. We call them Cyber Attackers or Cyber Criminals.
We can define them as an entity which may be a person or a group of persons or even an organization who are doing some malicious job to attack a system or network with the aim of stealing information, gaining access, or even destroying that network or system.
As we know the internet is growing so fast and more and more people are coming to this cyber world and spending more time and their activities here. Attackers are using different methods and tools which are readily available in the deep web or dark web for doing such criminal activities.
In broadly we can divide the cyber attackers are of four types,
Cybercriminals can be defined as a group of people or an individual who is working with the aim of stealing some sensitive information or accessing some sensitive computer or network or anything that is mentioned in crime crimes. They are dangerous and skilled and are able to use sophisticated tools and methods to destroy network security. They are able to make a lot of revenue from this method.
We can divide the criminals who are in the cyber world as
Refer to the cybercrime tutorials to know more about cybercrimes and criminals
These are people who are not included in cybercriminals as they are not doing any criminal activity such as destroying a computer or stealing sensitive information but they work and do some malicious activities for promoting some agenda which they believe may be political or religious or anything. They are using cyberspace to promote their interest and try to make their followers. We can call hacktivism digital disobedience.
Every nation has its own interest and has its own secrets in military and political and commercial areas. It is the government's duty to protect such secrets from all threats outside or inside the nation. Every nation has a highly skilled team of hackers who are working for the government and checking the security of every government secret. These hackers help the government to protect the secrets and block all the other hackers and attackers from inside or outside the nation. They are highly capable of attacking any other hackers or attackers as they are using huge resources of the nation.
INSIDER ATTACKS
Insider attack comes within the organization which is done by some employee or former employee who has knowledge about the network and its security measures and also has the credential for the login. These types of attacks have more precision and impact. We already discussed the insider attack in cybercrime introduction but here we are looking into it more deeply.
We can classify the insider attackers as
These are serious types of attackers who are doing such harm to the organizations as destroying the system or network stealing sensitive information and gaining access to deep security areas. Mostly the aim of such attacks will be revenge or some financial gain. These attacks are highly precise and targeted so they can cause serious damage. Installing intrusion detection systems can help up to an extent.
In some cases, the inside attacker will pretend to be an outside hacker and it is not easy to track such criminals who are working inside.
ACCIDENTAL
As the name suggests, these attacks are not intentional. These attacks happen if anyone deletes a serious file accidentally manipulates the data inside a file or accidentally discloses some important information to an outside organization.
NEGLIGENT
These types of attacks are not intentionally thought to harm the organization but some employees are negligent to the policies of the organization and cause harm to the organization due to their negligence. For example, if the organization has a strict policy of file sharing, some employees are neglecting the company policy and an external hacker got that data from such negligence. Another example is using the company login credentials in an unsafe environment to help the hackers to get access to the organization gateway.
