What Are the Motives?

There is no shortage of motives behind the threats that attackers come up with. Perhaps the most dangerous motive is the conscious decision to break the law, typically in an effort to gain some financial or monetary gain.
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What Are the Motives?What Are the Motives?There is no shortage of motives behind the threats that attackers come up with. Perhapsthe most dangerous motive is the conscious decision to break the law, typically in aneffort to gain some financial or monetary gain. Often, criminals develop attacks andexploits with the sole purpose of gaining illegal access to systems, typically for thepurpose of monetary gain. This gain could come from obtaining personal information andcommitting fraud with that information, gaining access to data and blackmailing thevictim into paying for that data, or stealing trade secrets from a competitors system orundermining the financial stability of the company.A less-driven, but still dangerous motive is the simple desire to cause mischief and wreakhavoc on an environment. Mischief covers everything from bored teenagers looking to dosomething they consider exciting and interesting, to the disgruntled ex-employee who isjust looking to cause trouble for his former employer. One of the most difficult aspects ofattackers motivated by mischief is that often the attacks they engage in have logicalreason, especially if the attacker falls into the category of the bored person just lookingfor something interesting to do. Many times, their attempts at what they considermundane and harmless activities can inadvertently cause significant problems or outages.Many virus writers fall into this category, not realizing just how much damage theirinnocuous virus can cause if someone is able to modify it slightly.Another angle for motivation is simple ego. Attackers are convinced that they are smarterthan you, the defender, and an easy way to prove it is to compromise the system. Theycan then run off to their chat rooms and brag about how they were able to get the best ofthe company they targeted.However, the most troublesome motive comes from attackers with multiple motives. Inthis case, the attacker is frequently so driven by boredom, ego, and criminal behavior thatnothing short of legal intervention can stop the attacker. Indeed, a number of attacks thatmay have started as untargeted attacks against an environment have escalated with badconsequences when attackers realized that what they did has been patched. Their egocannot handle that they were stopped, and they become willing to undertake moreriskyand more costlyactivities to prove that they are superior.Motives are not solely the realm of the attacker, however. As administrators, we have toknow what our motivation is in protecting our resources. Ensure not only that you areprotecting your resources, but that you are doing so in the proper manner. Although it ishuman nature when presented with an attack to want to lash out and strike back atattackers to teach them a lesson, that is not our place or our role. In fact, in the case ofzombies, the system that you decide to strike back against often becomes an unwittingvictim not only of the original hackers attack on their system, but of your attack in aneffort to teach the hacker not to mess with your systems. As cliché as it sounds, there aregood guys and bad guys, and as administrators we need to make sure that our motivesand undertakings remain on the side of the good guys.