What is an Advanced Persistent Threat?

An APT event can have one of the following intended purposes.

Intellectual property theft

Intellectual property, such as trade or government secrets, proprietary source code, or private communications, is all sensitive data that is private to an organization. In gaining initial access to this data, APT groups illegally obtain information to gain a competitive advantage or negatively impact the business target network.

Financial fraud

APTs can gain control over business systems and operations, giving the unauthorized actor the privileged access needed to commit financial fraud. These operations might send out financial transfers from user accounts or steal sensitive data from a company to pose as privileged individuals within the company.

Ransomware 

A successful APT event can have the goal of implementing ransomware. In this example, the APT begins encrypting sensitive data and preventing users from accessing the target network. These unauthorized groups can demand a high ransom price in return for providing the key to decrypt the files. 

Reputational damage

Some APT groups' specific goal is to cause reputational damage to the organization by leaking information to the public.

Here are the most common characteristics and symptoms of an advanced persistent threat.

Sophisticated, multi-stage events to gain access

Advanced persistent threats involve multi-stage events, which often follow a similar series of steps.

First, an unauthorized actor conducts reconnaissance on a target organization and its systems to gather information about assets and potential vulnerabilities. From here, they develop methods to take advantage of identified vulnerabilities.

After an unauthorized actor gains access to company systems, it moves through various parts of the system. They do so by gaining access to elevated privileges through social engineering, navigation of network segments, and other techniques. They can also distract security personnel. Command and control servers are set up to coordinate communications.

After target assets are accessible, an unauthorized actor typically begins to exfiltrate data or alter the compromised system, depending on the goal of the event. Some advanced persistent threats follow this final stage with an attempt to cover their traces to help prevent any knowledge of the event.

Performed by a highly motivated APT group

APT events come from highly motivated unauthorized actors who typically operate in groups. These groups come in many forms, including state-sponsored APTs, professional cybercrime organizations, hacktivist groups, or small teams of for-hire hackers.

Although a major goal of APTs is financial gain, some of these groups engage in launching APT events to gather sensitive information, expose data, sabotage infrastructure, or impact the reputation of organizations. 

An event over a significant time across multiple systems

The stages outlined previously can occur over an extended period. Due to the targeted nature of APT events, groups carefully plan to move at a slow pace to avoid raising attention or triggering alerts in systems. In some cases, the APT remains undetected for months or years before engaging in steps to achieve the original goal.

Designed not to leave a trace

The final stage of an APT threat actor’s movement is to cover any traces of an event, by techniques such as deleting files, modifying logs, or obscuring certain aspects of a database. By reducing the likelihood that a cybersecurity team uncovers a system abnormality, unauthorized actors are more likely to exit without consequences.

Additionally, by covering evidence of their presence, APTs can also keep their specific method of infiltration a secret. This secret exit allows them to use the same slow and methodical strategy with other target organizations.

Here are several effective security measures to help prevent APTs and defend against them.

Threat intelligence

Threat intelligence systems are an effective strategy to help prevent APTs. Threat intelligence collates internal and external security data to provide a holistic view of the current state of events and their common vectors. By using public and private data, you can determine your main potential APT adversaries and tactics and how to defend against them.

Organizations can draw intel and create strategies by implementing threat intelligence platforms, open-source threat intelligence feeds, and frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK.

Logging and telemetry

Effective and extensive logging of cybersecurity systems, network, asset access points, endpoint monitoring, and overall systems health data allows security experts to develop a comprehensive overview of your business systems. Retaining granular logs and implementing advanced analytics improves anomaly detection and supports retroactive investigation into unexpected security events.

Technology

There are several technologies that you can use to enhance your ability to detect, neutralize, and mitigate APTs. Here are a few central technologies in this security tech stack:

• Intrusion detection systems (IDSs): Tools that monitor network traffic to identify any strange activity.
• Security Information and Event Management Systems (SIEM): A solution that correlates data from various security systems to offer real-time threat detection and unexpected security event responses.
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Maps and monitors all company endpoint devices to identify anomalies and respond to them automatically.

Layered security

Alongside APT security measures, you can also implement a layered security strategy to reduce the likelihood of an unexpected security event. You can introduce network segmentation, secure location storage, implement least-privilege access, enforce multi-factor authentication for all company accounts, and use strong at-rest and in-transit encryption standards. Additionally, regularly patching network software, system software, and application software helps mitigate known vulnerabilities.

Training

One of the most common points of entry for APTs and other unexpected cybersecurity events is through contact with company employees. Whether through phishing scams or social manipulation by tricking an employee into clicking on a compromised link, groups often target individuals within the organization. With AI advances, advanced impersonation techniques are becoming commonplace.

You can conduct regular security awareness programs to combat social engineering threats within your organization. Your employees should be able to recognize the initial signs of an APT and report events to your security team.