Threat actor

A threat actor, bad actor or malicious actor is either a person or a group of people that take part in an action that is intended to cause harm to the cyber realm including: computers, devices, systems, or networks.^[1] The term is typically used to describe individuals or groups that perform malicious acts against a person or an organization of any type or size. Threat actors engage in cyber related offenses to exploit open vulnerabilities and disrupt operations.^[2] Threat actors have different educational backgrounds, skills, and resources.^[1] The frequency and classification of cyber attacks changes rapidly. The background of threat actors helps dictate who they target, how they attack, and what information they seek. There are a number of threat actors including: cyber criminals, nation-state actors, ideologues, thrill seekers/trolls, insiders, and competitors.^[3] These threat actors all have distinct motivations, techniques, targets, and uses of stolen data.^[4] See Advanced persistent threats for a list of identified threat actors.