Level 1 · 0A Start here · Lesson 2 of 3
Who attacks, what they want and how they move forward
It's almost never someone who picked you personally. The most common attacks are mass attacks: a program sends the same trap message to a million people and waits to see who falls for it. If one in a hundred falls for it, that's already a business.
What they want
The most common goal is money: stealing card details, demanding a ransom for your files or using your account to scam your contacts. They also want personal data, which gets sold, and sometimes they just want to use your account or your computer to attack others.
Who they are
There are ordinary scammers looking for money, organized gangs that run like companies, people who attack out of revenge or curiosity and, in big cases, groups that work for a government. And there are also people who use the same techniques with permission and to help: the ethical hacker, who looks for weaknesses so they can be fixed before a criminal uses them.
The easiest link
Attackers choose the cheapest path. It's easier to trick a person than to break a well-protected system. That's why so many attacks start with a fake message, a phone call or a link. This is called social engineering (tricking people instead of machines), and it's the first thing you'll learn to recognize.
Going deeper
The path of an attack
It almost always follows a sequence: launching a mass attack or choosing a target, getting a first way in with a trick or a leaked password, moving around until reaching what's valuable, taking or locking the data, and profiting from it, for example by selling it or demanding a ransom. Stopping it at any point blocks everything that comes after.
Review questions
The same trap message reaches a million people. What does that tell you?
Answer: That it's a mass attack: they're betting that some people will fall for it. Mass attacks are cheap for the attacker: they don't need lots of people to fall for it; a few are enough.
What are attackers after most often?
Answer: Money and data that can be sold. Most of them do it for money: they steal data, demand ransoms or scam people using your account.
Why do so many attacks start by tricking a person?
Answer: Because it's easier than breaking a well-protected system. Tricking someone costs less than beating a technical defense. That's why each person's attention is part of the defense.