Cyber Exploitation

Abstract

When people generally speak of cyber-attacks or cyber warfighting, the onus typically seems to be on the end effect of the attack. This is understandable as the attack portion of cyber-attacks is usually a cyber-physical effect that even non-technical people can understand the impact of. When a cyber-attack can take control of a vehicle’s braking and steering, for instance, the cyber-physical effect of the attack is what makes the news. To the non-technical, losing control of their vehicle is highly relatable. Whereas the hackers among us are more interested in how the vehicle controlling code was delivered to the vehicle and how it was able to take over those computing functions. The term cyber-attack is commonly conveyed and interpreted as the entire process of bringing the attack end effect to bear on a system. In actuality the process involves cyber intelligence gathering or reconnaissance, cyber exploitation, and then ultimately a cyber-attack effect.