In this lesson, we are going to cover
unskilled attackers.
In the world of cybersecurity, not all threat
actors are going to be highly skilled or well-funded.
At one end of the spectrum
you will find unskilled attackers often referred
to as script kiddies.
Despite their limited technical ability
these individuals can still pose a significant threat
to organizations and individuals alike.
An unskilled attacker or script kiddie
as they are often referred
to within the cybersecurity industry
is an individual who lacks the technical knowledge to
develop their own hacking tools or exploits.
Instead, these low-skilled threat actors need to rely
on scripts and programs that have been developed by others.
These script kiddies often have a very basic understanding
of how these tools work
and they don't have the skills to create
or modify these tools themselves.
Despite their limited technical skills
unskilled attackers can still cause significant damage
using readily available tools and exploits to
victimize systems with unpatched known vulnerabilities.
For example, many script kiddies have used ready to
use tools to launch distributed denial of service attacks
against organizations, as well as defacing their websites
and spreading malware across the internet.
While their attacks are usually less sophisticated
they can still be quite disruptive
particularly for organizations
or individuals with weaker cybersecurity postures.
Moreover, the sheer number
of unskilled attackers can make them a pretty sizable threat
since they can launch a large number
of attacks against your organization.
Many unskilled attackers are motivated by a desire
for recognition or the thrill of causing some kind
of disruption to an organization's network.
These unskilled threat actors may seek to gain notoriety
amongst their peers or the wider online community
by defacing a corporate website
or taking down an organization's networks.
Some of these actors are also simply motivated
by curiosity and use hacking
as a means to explore and better understand digital systems.
Unlike more sophisticated threat actors
unskilled attackers are less likely to be motivated
by financial gain or political ideologies.
Someone like a hacktivist would be,
instead unskilled threat actors
and script kiddies are often more opportunistic
than targeted in their actions since they tend to focus
on easier targets instead of higher value ones.
So how do these unskilled attackers cause damage?
Well, as I said, one way is to launch a DDoS attack
with a simple software tool like the low orbit ion cannon.
An unskilled attacker can simply enter the IP address
of the system they want to target, and then
click a button to launch an attack against the target.
If the unskilled attacker can convince a few
of their friends to join in on the attack
they can usually kick an individual's workstation
out of the network without much effort.
So remember, an unskilled attacker
also known as a script kiddie is an individual who
lacks the technical knowledge to develop their own hacking
tools or exploits.
These unskilled attackers are usually motivated
by gaining recognition or the thrill
of causing some kind of disruption.
These attackers are unsophisticated and do not
have many resources, and usually they have a low level
of skill to conduct their attacks.
That being said, if enough
of these unskilled attackers get together
they could cause some serious problems
for your organization's enterprise networks.