VECTOR

WHAT

HOW

Advanced Persistent Threat

An Advanced Persistent Threat is an attacker that exists in a network or device for an extended amount of time without detection.

A teen’s infected device on a network can be the starting point for an APT and may travel over the router. An APT generally targets high-level targets and may travel from a WFH device into a company database, residing inside of VPN tunnels or through operating system rootkits which are consistently collecting company information while avoiding detection. Even when an APT has been seemingly remediated, backdoors installed at the kernel level by APTs often allow for re-entry.

Zero Day Attack

A Zero Day Attack is the most dangerous cyber attack. A ZDA is an original attack that has no known patch or prevention. The largest cyber attacks in history are ZDA. A ZDA can bring down nation-states or self-destruct nuclear weapons centrifuges, such as the well-known Stuxnet attack.

On a home network that hosts both teen and parent devices, A ZDA can happen in almost any manner, and it is near impossible to defend against. Large tech corporations are prime targets of ZDAs. A ZDA can steal critical intellectual property or even the databases of companies.