Threats
75 pojmovaAPI Abuse
API abuse arises when an attacker uses a programming interface in a way the application did not anticipate or did not restrict enough. An API is not merely a technical add-on to the application. It is often the main entrance to the data, the users, the orders, the payments and the administration.
Accidental Data Leak
An accidental data leak is not an attack in the classic sense, but the consequences can look the same. Data becomes available to the wrong people through human error, bad configuration, wrong sharing, a public repository, open cloud storage, or mail sent to the wrong address.
Account Takeover
Account takeover is the moment the attacker gains full control of an account — not only access, but the ability to change the password, the recovery mail address, the phone number and the second factor, while the real owner is shut out with no technical way back in on their own. Takeover is rarely the first stage of an attack. It is usually the destination of what came before: phishing, credential stuffing, token theft.
Authentication Bypass
An authentication bypass means the attacker reaches a protected part of the system without logging in the ordinary way. They need not know a password. Sometimes a flaw in the logic is enough, or an unprotected endpoint, a predictable token, a misconfigured proxy, or a gap between two steps of the login.
BGP Hijacking
BGP hijacking is an attack, or a serious mistake, in which internet traffic is diverted by wrong routing. BGP is the protocol by which autonomous systems on the internet tell each other which path leads to particular IP ranges. If somebody announces another party's range as their own, part of the internet can believe them.
Backdoor
A backdoor is a hidden way in. Once placed or opened, it lets the attacker return to the machine — with no password, no authorization and no entry in the ordinary records. A backdoor can be opened by malware while it runs, but it can equally be a user account nobody watches, or web shell access left on a server.
Botnet Attacks
A botnet is a set of compromised devices the attacker controls remotely. That network can hold computers, servers, routers, cameras, NAS devices, phones and IoT equipment. The owner of the device often does not know that it is carrying out somebody else's requests.
Brute-force attack
A brute-force attack breaks into an account by trying to log in over and over: automated tools work through password after password until one takes. It succeeds against short, weak and common passwords, and against systems that put no limit on failed attempts. It is not clever — it is only fast, and it can run for days.
Business Email Compromise
Business email compromise is not an ordinary fake email. The attacker breaks into business correspondence, or imitates it well enough that somebody in the company believes the request comes from the director, from finance, from a supplier, a lawyer or a partner. The aim is usually money, but it can also be a confidential document, a change of payment details, or an opening for the next phase of the attack.
Cloud IAM misconfiguration
Cloud IAM misconfiguration means a user, a service account, an application or a role holds more rights than it needs. In the cloud an identity is not merely a login. An identity is permission to read data, spin up resources, change networks, assume roles and delete backups.
Cloud storage exposure
Cloud storage exposure arises when data that ought to be private becomes publicly reachable through a bad configuration of a cloud service. That can be S3 buckets, blob storage, backups, logs, documents, images, database exports or configuration files.
Contractor Abuse
Contractor access abuse arises when a consultant, a contractor, an external firm or a temporarily engaged person uses access more widely or for longer than the work requires. The access is often granted legitimately, but afterwards it is not monitored, not narrowed and not withdrawn in time.
Credential stuffing
Credential stuffing does not go after unknown passwords; it tries known ones. With username and password pairs from databases leaked across the internet, the attacker tries the most-used services such as Facebook and Instagram, counting on people reusing the same credentials on several services — which in most cases holds.
Cross-Site Request Forgery
Cross-site request forgery, or CSRF, exploits the fact that a browser automatically sends existing session cookies to a site where the user is already logged in. The attacker does not need to know the password. It is enough to lead the user down the wrong path.
Cross-Site Scripting
Cross-site scripting, better known as XSS, arises when a web application allows somebody else's script to be displayed and executed in the user's browser. The attacker does not have to break into the web server. It is enough for their code to end up in a page the victim opens as though it were entirely legitimate.
Crypto-wallet drainer
A crypto wallet works by signing transactions that move crypto assets. Draining a wallet is the process in which the user, believing they are doing something legitimate, signs a transaction or an approval that hands the attacker control of those assets.
Cryptominer
A cryptominer steals what we rarely think of as a target: our computing power and our electricity. In the background it uses our processors and graphics cards to mine cryptocurrency for the attacker while we pay the bill. It has no interest in our data, only in our resources and how much of them there is.
DNS Amplification
DNS amplification is a reflected DDoS attack in which the attacker uses open DNS resolvers to multiply the traffic aimed at a victim. The attacker sends relatively small DNS queries but forges the victim's address as the source.
DNS Poisoning
DNS poisoning is an attack in which a user or a resolver is given a false answer for a domain. The result is that the user types a familiar address into the browser and DNS takes them to the wrong web server. On paper the name is the same. In reality the road leads somewhere else.
Deepfake Attack
A deepfake attack uses an artificially generated voice, image or video so that somebody can pose as a real person. In cyber attacks this usually means the director's voice on a call, a colleague's face in a video meeting, or a recording that feels real enough for the victim to accept the request.
Denial of Service / DoS
DoS is a denial-of-service attack that tries to bring a service down or slow it so far that legitimate users can no longer use it. Unlike DDoS it need not come from a large network of compromised devices. Sometimes one source and a well-chosen vulnerability are enough.
Dependency Confusion
Dependency confusion is an attack on the process by which software build platforms find and deliver software dependencies. An attacker can publish a package on a public registry with the same name as an organization's internal package, or with the name of another public and valid package, counting on the fetching tool choosing their version over the real one.
Distributed Denial of Service / DDoS
DDoS is a distributed denial-of-service attack. Instead of attacking from one place, the attacker uses a large number of compromised devices, rented infrastructure and reflected traffic to bury the target in web requests until the server is blocked. The aim is not data theft but choking the service into unavailability.
Evil Twin
A fake Wi-Fi network, known as an evil twin, imitates a legitimate wireless network so that users connect to an access point the attacker controls. The network name looks familiar, the signal can be stronger, and the device often suggests or restores the connection by itself.
Fileless malware
Fileless malware never writes itself to disk during the attack, so antivirus software has a harder time finding it. While it operates it lives in memory and works with tools the system already has — PowerShell, scripts, built-in commands. Because it delivers its payload through legitimate tools, its activity is not easy to tell apart from normal work.
Infostealer
An infostealer has one basic role: to collect your credentials. Saved browser passwords, cookies and session tokens, autofill data, crypto wallet keys — all of it is of interest. It stays in contact with the attacker and sends on what it gathers. When the job is done it can delete itself and disappear.
Insecure Deserialization
Deserialization is the return of a packed object into a form the application can use. The problem arises when an application accepts an object from an untrusted source and handles it as though it were safe. At that point the attacker is not sending mere data but a specially prepared structure that can change the flow of execution.
Insider Threat
An insider threat comes from a person who has, or once had, legitimate access to an organization's systems, data or premises. That can be an employee, a former employee, an administrator, an associate, a supplier or a partner. The trouble is that the access was not necessarily unauthorized to begin with.
IoT Device Compromise
IoT device compromise hits cameras, routers, sensors, smart televisions, locks, controllers and all the equipment connected to a network that does not behave like a classic computer. The problem is that these devices are often forgotten the moment they are switched on.
Kerberoasting
Kerberoasting is an attack specific to Windows domain networks and Active Directory (AD). User logins are handled by the Kerberos protocol, which issues tickets as proof of identity. In a domain environment there are non-user accounts — service accounts — under which most background tasks and services run, such as databases and business applications. Service accounts are set up so that any user can request a ticket for access to a given service. The catch is that the ticket is encrypted with the service account's password.
Keylogger
A keylogger is a program or hardware device that records every keystroke. Software keyloggers run covertly in the background, while hardware variants can be physically attached between the keyboard and the computer.
Loader / Dropper
Loaders and droppers are couriers. Their only job is to deliver the infection to the machine. A dropper carries the payload with it and writes it to the system; a loader is usually smaller and pulls the payload from the internet only once it has landed. Neither does anything more than that — and that is their advantage.
MFA Fatigue
MFA fatigue is social-engineering pressure applied to two-factor authentication. The attacker has the password, leaked or phished, but is stopped at the second factor — a confirmation the user has to approve on their phone. So the attacker starts the login over and over, burying the phone in approval requests. The arithmetic is simple: out of irritation, confusion, or the thought that it must be some glitch, the user approves one at some point — and the attacker is through the whole authentication.
Malvertising
Malvertising uses ad networks as a delivery channel for attacks. The user does not have to be on a dubious site; a malicious advert can appear on a legitimate portal too, because ad space often arrives through several intermediaries.
Model theft / extraction
Model theft and extraction means an attacker obtains a model an organization trained, bought or adapted to its own needs. That can be direct theft of the files, the weights and the configuration, but also controlled extraction through an API, where the model is queried enough times to build an approximate copy.
Pass-the-Hash
So that it does not keep the password in readable form, Windows remembers its cryptographic fingerprint — the hash. With older Windows authentication (NTLM), the password is not required to prove identity; the hash is enough. Pass-the-hash abuses exactly that: if the attacker obtains a user's hash, they can log in with it without ever learning the real password.
Password spraying
Password spraying is brute force turned around. Instead of trying many passwords on one account, the attacker tries common passwords across many accounts. That avoids lockout, because each individual account sees only an attempt or two.
Path Traversal
Path traversal is an attack in which the attacker tries to step out of the permitted directory and reach files the application should never display. The best-known pattern is a sequence such as `../`, which walks the path back up the file system level by level.
Phishing
Phishing is the most widespread form of social-engineering attack and, in a great many cases, the first link in any serious break-in. The attacker sends a message that appears to come from a known organization — a bank, a courier, a government service, a colleague — and leads the victim into doing one of three things: clicking a link, opening an attachment, or entering their credentials somewhere.
Physical Access Attack
Physical access is the oldest form of compromise: the attacker reaches the device, the room, a port, a cable or a piece of paper. Once somebody can sit down at a computer, walk up to a server, put a device into a port or carry a laptop away, digital protection no longer helps.
Pretexting
Pretexting is social engineering with a prepared story. The attacker does not simply send a link and wait for a click; they build a scenario in which what they are doing looks normal. They present themselves as a colleague, technical support, an auditor, a bank, a supplier, a courier or an official.
Privilege Escalation
Privilege escalation is the attempt by an attacker who already holds some level of access to widen their rights in order to move through the network. Escalation is rarely the first stage — it comes after entry through, say, an ordinary user account or a compromised service. It takes the attacker from the crack they slipped through to control of the whole system. There are two directions: vertical escalation, from an ordinary user to domain administrator, and horizontal, moving from one account to another user's resources at the same level of rights.
Privilege Misuse
Privilege misuse arises when somebody uses rights they genuinely hold for actions they have no business reason to take. Unlike privilege escalation, the attacker or insider here does not have to acquire new authority. The trouble is that the existing authority is enough to do damage.
Prompt injection
Prompt injection exploits the weakness of language models in telling an instruction apart from the content they are processing. When a model reads an email, a document, a page, a ticket or a message, the attacker can put text into that content which reads like an instruction.
QR phishing - Quishing
Quishing is phishing through a QR code. Instead of a visible link, the user is given an image to scan with their phone. The QR code then takes them to a fake page for a login, a payment, a document download or an account confirmation.
Ransom DDoS
Ransom DDoS joins an attack on availability to extortion. The attackers threaten to bring the service down, or first run a short demonstration attack, and then ask for money for the attack to stop or for a larger one not to happen.
Ransomware
Ransomware locks a company's data and demands payment to release it. The ransom is asked in cryptocurrency because it makes the money harder to follow — which is exactly why attackers use it.
Remote Code Execution
Remote code execution is one of the most dangerous classes of vulnerability, because it lets an attacker run their own code on a vulnerable system from somewhere else entirely. If the application runs on a server, the attacker is no longer merely a user on the outside; they gain a way to influence what the server executes.
Remote access trojan - RAT
A RAT gives the attacker remote control of your machine. Once inside they can browse files, switch on the camera and microphone, record what you type and run commands — all of it live, as if sitting in front of your screen. It resembles remote support tools, only on the wrong side of the law.
Resource Exhaustion
Resource exhaustion targets what a system cannot work without: processor, memory, disk, network connections, threads, the database or processing queues. The aim is not necessarily to send enormous traffic but to make the system spend what it has.
Rootkit
A rootkit is hard to see, and that is its most important property. It can settle beneath the operating system and beneath the layer where antivirus software can look: sometimes in drivers or in the kernel, out of reach of protective mechanisms, sometimes in the boot phase, even in the motherboard firmware. From there it hides itself and everything else the attacker does, so an infected system looks perfectly clean.
SCADA/OT Attack
An attack on SCADA and OT systems targets industrial processes, not only data. These are the systems that run manufacturing, energy, water, transport, buildings, sensors, PLC controllers and HMI stations. When such a system stops or starts working wrongly, the consequences can be fatal.
SIM Swapping
SIM swapping does not attack the phone but the phone number. The attacker persuades, or bribes, a mobile operator to move the number to a new SIM card, citing a lost phone or a damaged card. They usually come armed with personal details from leaked databases and phishing. The moment the number moves to their card, the real phone loses signal and every call and message goes to the attacker.
SMS phishing - Smishing
Smishing is phishing over SMS or messaging apps. The attacker sends a short message with a link, a request to confirm something, or an instruction for an urgent action, counting on messages being read quickly on a phone and without much checking.
SQL Injection
SQL injection usually arises when a web application passes user input blindly to the database on the web server. Instead of ordinary text, the attacker can put part of an SQL command into a login, search or filter field. If the application does not stop it, the database can execute something the designer never had in mind, and certainly never intended.
SSRF
SSRF is a vulnerability in which the attacker gets a web server to send a request to an address of the attacker's choosing. The distinction matters: the request is not sent by the user's browser but by the server. That opens the door to internal services which from the outside ought to remain invisible.
Service Abuse
Service abuse uses legitimate functions of a system in an unforeseen way. The attacker does not have to find a classic vulnerability. It is enough to work out how a normal function can be automated, overloaded, or turned against the service and its users.
Session Hijacking
When you log in, the service opens a session — a state that remembers you are you, together with everything that goes with it, such as your preferences and settings. The main benefit is that you do not have to type a password every few minutes as you move through the features. That session is marked by an identifier, usually held in a browser cookie. Session hijacking is the taking over of a session that is already open. The attacker does not attack the login; they slip into a session that has already passed authentication and carry on operating the service in your name.
Shadow IT
Shadow IT is the use of applications, cloud services, accounts and tools without the knowledge or approval of the IT team. Employees usually do not bring them in to cause a problem but to get the work done faster: a file needs sharing, a team needs a chat, marketing needs a tool, sales needs a PDF now.
Shared Account Abuse
Shared account abuse begins wherever several people use the same username and password. The system then no longer knows who actually did something. It knows only that a particular account was used, which for accountability is the same as knowing nothing.
Spear Phishing
Spear phishing is phishing cut to fit one person or a small group of users. Instead of sending the same message to thousands of addresses, the attacker first gathers information about the victim — where they work, who they work with, what they are working on right now, how the company addresses its clients — and then writes a message that reads as if it came from that world.
Spyware
Spyware watches the user and what they do. Hidden, it can spend months collecting what you type, what is on your screen, where you are, who calls you, and what you say through the microphone and camera. The point is not damage to the device but a record of the person, which can later be turned to any number of uses.
Supply Chain Attack
A supply chain attack does not always aim at the final victim directly. The attacker compromises software, hardware, a supplier, a build process or an update mechanism before the product or service reaches the user. The victim then carries the problem into their own environment, because it comes from a source they trust.
Third-Party Compromise
Third-party compromise happens when the attacker does not go at an organization directly but at a supplier, a partner, a service provider or an external associate who already holds some form of trust and authorized access. Instead of forcing the front door, the attacker looks for a side entrance somebody else has already opened.
Token Theft
A token is proof that you have already logged in. When you sign in and confirm your identity with a second factor, the service issues a token, stored in the browser, which vouches that you have already been checked the next time round. The token is sent automatically with every further request, so you do not have to type the password again. Token theft is the taking of that proof. With it in hand, the attacker presents themselves as you — without your password and without the second factor, because both have already been approved.
Trojan
A Trojan does not break in; the victim opens the door. It usually presents itself as something useful — a program or a document, a fake installer, a cracked application, or a harmless-looking tool for speeding up the computer. The user runs what they meant to run, and the attacker gets what they were after.
Typosquatting
Typosquatting exploits small mistakes in typing, reading or recognizing a name. The attacker registers a domain, an account or a software package that resembles a legitimate name, counting on a user, a developer or a system to miss one letter, swap a character or overlook the difference.
USB Drop Attack
A USB drop attack uses human curiosity and the habit of plugging an unknown device into a computer to see what is on it. The attacker leaves a USB stick or device where an employee will notice it: a car park, a corridor, a reception desk, a meeting room, a bag of promotional material.
Virus
A virus embeds itself in other executable files and runs together with them. It starts when the user launches the application or opens the infected file, and often attaches itself to other running processes and applications. That is what separates it from a worm: a virus needs a host and a user, while a worm spreads on its own.
Watering Hole Attack
A watering hole attack does not chase the victim directly. The attacker first finds a site the target group visits regularly, then compromises that site or the content loaded through it. The victim then comes to the place of the attack on their own, doing what they normally do.
Whaling
Whaling is targeted phishing aimed at senior management, owners, directors and people who can approve large decisions. The target is not chosen by chance. The attacker knows who they are after and why that person is worth more than an ordinary account.
Wiper
A wiper does not exist to steal or to extort — a wiper destroys data. It erases and overwrites, breaks file systems, and combined with worms and zero-day vulnerabilities it can bring down hundreds or thousands of networks within hours. Unlike ransomware it offers no ransom; recovery was never part of the plan, because the aim is damage, not money.
Worm
A worm spreads on its own. Unlike a virus it needs no host file and no click from the user — once it is on one machine it immediately looks for the next, and the next, and thousands of devices can be infected within minutes. Replication is its purpose, speed is its weapon, and whatever it carries is the real threat.
Zero-Day Exploitation
Zero-day exploitation uses a vulnerability for which the vendor has no patch yet, or does not know exists. The name says how much time the defense had to prepare: zero days. In practice a victim can be doing everything right, keeping systems and applications up to date, and still be exposed.
voice phishing - Vishing
Vishing is phishing over the telephone. Instead of an email and a link, the attacker uses a voice, a phone number and the pressure of the moment. They present themselves as a bank, technical support, a courier, the police, the tax office, or somebody from the company, while trying to extract details or lead the victim into doing something they otherwise would not.
Techniques
46 pojmovaAccess Token Manipulation
Token abuse involves stealing or manipulating authentication tokens, session cookies, or access keys to assume the identity of a legitimate user or service. The attacker can use a token without knowing the password.
AiTM
AiTM sits between the user and the real service. Classic phishing steals a password; AiTM steals the live session. The victim gets a link, lands on a proxy that looks exactly like the real login (because it forwards everything to the real site), enters credentials and even the MFA code — the proxy passes them through, the real service issues a session token, and the attacker captures that token.
Automation & Scripting
Automation and scripting involves using scripts, tools, and automated procedures to accelerate and scale activities within a compromised environment. Attackers leverage system scripting interpreters, configuration management tools, and custom scripts.
Brute Force
Brute force as a technique involves the systematic testing of a large number of credential combinations to gain unauthorized access. It includes classic exhaustive testing, dictionary attacks with common passwords, and password spraying.
Cloud lateral movement
In the cloud, identities can assume roles — temporarily take on another identity's rights. It's built for legitimate delegation, but it becomes lateral movement when an attacker who got one identity chains the steps: identity A can become B, B can become C with more rights, C reaches another account. No new password at each step — just inherited delegation.
Command & Control
Command and control communication involves establishing a persistent channel between the attacker and the compromised system for sending commands and receiving results. The attacker uses this channel to manage malware, launch new attack phases, and retrieve data.
Configuration Abuse
Configuration abuse involves exploiting misconfigured systems, services, or security controls. Attackers look for default passwords, overly broad permissions, open ports, and services without authentication.
Container Escape
Containers are meant to isolate an application from the host and from other containers. Container escape is when an attacker controlling a process inside a container breaks that isolation and reaches the host (or other containers). From an application-level foothold they get host-level reach.
Credential Abuse
Credential abuse involves using stolen, leaked, or otherwise obtained login data to gain unauthorized access to systems and services. The attacker impersonates a legitimate user.
DLL Sideloading
Technique of loading a malicious DLL through a legitimate program that requests it.
DNS Tunneling
Technique of exfiltrating data or C2 communication through DNS queries.
Data Destruction
Technique of permanently deleting or corrupting data on a compromised system.
Data Exfiltration
Data exfiltration involves transferring stolen information from the compromised environment to an attacker-controlled location. Data can be sent through encrypted channels, legitimate cloud services, email, or even physical media.
Domain Account Discovery
Mapping users, groups, permissions, and Active Directory structure.
Domain Fronting
Technique of hiding C2 traffic behind legitimate CDN domains.
Double Extortion
Technique where data is first exfiltrated, then encrypted for ransom.
Drive-by Download
Drive-by download is automatic malware download when visiting a compromised site.
Encrypted C2 Channels
Using HTTPS, DNS-over-HTTPS, or other encrypted protocols for C2.
Exploitation
Exploitation involves leveraging a flaw in software, hardware, or configuration to execute unauthorized code or bypass security controls. Vulnerabilities can exist in operating systems, applications, network services, or firmware.
Fast-Flux DNS
Rapid rotation of IP addresses associated with a C2 domain.
Forge Kerberos Tickets
A set of techniques exploiting the Kerberos protocol in Active Directory.
Impair Defenses
Defense evasion encompasses techniques by which an attacker conceals their activity from security tools, analysts, and automated detection systems. The goal is to remain undetected for as long as possible in the compromised environment.
In-Memory Execution
Executing malicious code in memory without writing files to disk.
Indicator Removal
A set of techniques for hindering or preventing digital forensics.
Lateral Movement
Lateral movement involves an attacker moving from one compromised system to another within the same network. The goal is to expand access to systems containing more valuable data or enabling further escalation.
Living off the Land
Using legitimate system tools to execute malicious actions.
Log Tampering
Deleting, modifying, or disabling logs to hide activity.
Malware Delivery
Malware delivery encompasses the methods by which malicious software is transferred to a target system. This includes infected attachments, compromised websites, malicious ads, removable media, and compromised software updates.
Network Sniffing
Passively intercepting network traffic to collect sensitive data.
OSINT
Gathering information about targets from publicly available sources before an attack.
Pass-the-Hash
Using NTLM hashes instead of plaintext passwords for authentication.
Payload Obfuscation
Payload obfuscation involves applying techniques to conceal the content and intent of malicious code. Attackers use encryption, compression, encoding, polymorphism, and packing to evade detection by security tools.
Persistence
Persistence encompasses techniques by which an attacker ensures their access or malicious code survives system reboots, password changes, or other interruptions. The goal is to maintain a foothold in the environment over an extended period.
Phishing
Phishing as a technique involves sending fraudulent emails, SMS messages, or chat messages to trick the victim into clicking a malicious link, opening an infected attachment, or entering credentials on a fake page.
Physical Access
Using physical access to a device or space as an attack vector.
Privilege Escalation
Privilege escalation is a technique by which an attacker with limited access gains a higher level of authorization. Vertical escalation means reaching administrator or root level, while horizontal escalation means accessing another user's resources at the same privilege level.
Process Injection
Injecting malicious code into the address space of a legitimate process.
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance involves the systematic gathering of information about the target environment, both externally before the attack and internally after compromise. The goal is to understand the topology, identify targets, and plan the next stages.
Resource Exhaustion
Resource exhaustion as a technique involves deliberately overloading target systems to make them unavailable to legitimate users. The attacker targets CPU, memory, network bandwidth, disk, or connection limits.
Rootkit Installation
Technique of installing a rootkit to deeply hide presence on a system.
Service Abuse
Service abuse as a technique involves using legitimate system functionalities in unintended ways to cause damage, gain unauthorized access, or achieve financial gain.
Social Engineering
Social engineering as a technique involves manipulating human behavior to obtain information, access, or the execution of actions that benefit the attacker. It relies on trust, authority, urgency, or fear.
Supply Chain Compromise
Technique of injecting malicious code into the software supply chain.
Timestomping
Changing file timestamps to hide when they were created or modified.
Watering Hole
Technique of compromising websites that the target group regularly visits.
Website Defacement
Unauthorized modification of website content to send a message.
Defenses
4 / 45 · human-cultureDevSecOps
Integrating security into all phases of the software development lifecycle.
Phishing Simulations
Regular testing of employees with simulated phishing messages.
Security Awareness
Employee education programs about cyber threats and safe behavior.
Security Champions
An ambassador program for security within development and business teams.