Table 2.

Variations between traditional and APT attacks.

Traditional attacks	APT attacks
Mostly target a single actor	Conducted by a group of skilled hackers that is well-resourced from both monetary and technical viewpoints
The victim is unspecific, and attacks target individual systems	The victim is specific, and attacks target organisations and governmental institutions
Aim for financial gain	Aim to achieve the theft of intellectual property and provide strategic benefits
Usually employ ‘smash and grab’ strategies that alert defenders	Designed to be undetected and blend into network traffic