How Hackers Think: You Will Be Attacked
- Terry Telford
- Aug 4
- 9 min read
The stark reality for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) is: it's not a matter of if you will be targeted by cybercriminals, but when. The comforting notion that your business is "too small to matter" is a dangerous fallacy, a mirage that hackers readily exploit. From ransomware crippling operations to data breaches eroding customer trust, the threat landscape is increasingly focused on organizations of all sizes.
Understanding your enemy's tactics helps protect your company and stay a step ahead of threat actors. By stepping into the mindset of a hacker and dissecting their attack methodology through the lens of the globally recognized MITRE ATT&CK framework, you can proactively fortify your defenses and navigate the cyber battlefield with greater confidence.
Hackers aren't chaotic agents of destruction; they are often methodical and strategic. They follow a well-defined series of steps to achieve their objectives, much like a burglar meticulously planning and executing a break-in. To better grasp this process, cybersecurity professionals often refer to the concept of a "cyber kill chain" – a sequential progression of an attack. Building upon this, the MITRE ATT&CK framework provides a comprehensive and detailed knowledge base of these adversary tactics and techniques, offering a common language and structure for understanding the intricate ways in which attackers operate across various stages of an attack. By understanding these 14 categories, SMBs can gain invaluable insight into how to anticipate, detect, and respond to cyber threats.
The 14 Stages of an Attack: A Hacker's Playbook & Your Defense
1. Reconnaissance: The Scouting Phase
Hacker's Goal: To gather as much intelligence as possible about your organization, its employees, technology infrastructure, and online presence. Think of this as a burglar meticulously casing a house, looking for vulnerabilities and points of entry.
Hacker’s Process: Hackers will actively scour your public-facing information. This includes your website's "About Us" page, employee profiles on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, public records, job postings that reveal your technology stack, and even seemingly innocuous details shared on company social media accounts. They are looking for employee names, email address formats, software versions you might be using, and any publicly exposed network configurations. In some cases, they might even resort to physical reconnaissance, such as "dumpster diving" for discarded documents that could contain sensitive information.
Your Defense: Be mindful of the information you make publicly available. Conduct regular "self-reconnaissance" searches for your company online as an attacker would, to understand your digital footprint. Implement comprehensive employee awareness training, emphasizing the dangers of oversharing personal and company information online and the risks associated with social engineering attempts that often leverage publicly available details.
2. Resource Development: Building the Arsenal
Hacker's Goal: To create, acquire, or compromise the resources necessary to carry out the attack. This is like a burglar gathering their tools, lock picks, crowbars, and getaway vehicle.
Hacker’s Process: This might involve registering deceptive domain names that closely resemble your company's (for phishing campaigns), purchasing lists of stolen employee credentials from the dark web, developing or acquiring readily available malware (ransomware kits, keyloggers), or compromising legitimate third-party services that can be used as part of their attack infrastructure, such as compromised email accounts or cloud storage.
Your Defense: Proactively monitor for new domain registrations that are similar to your company's domain name. Invest in reputable email security solutions that are capable of detecting and blocking sophisticated phishing attempts before they reach your employees. Exercise extreme caution with unsolicited software or tools, ensuring all software is downloaded from trusted sources.
3. Initial Access: Getting a Foot in the Door
Hacker's Goal: To establish the first foothold within your network or on one of your systems. This is the moment the burglar finds an unlocked window or picks the lock on the front door.
Hacker’s Process: The most frequent initial access methods include: highly targeted phishing emails containing malicious links or infected attachments designed to trick employees into clicking or downloading; exploiting known vulnerabilities in public-facing applications such as your company website, VPN (Virtual Private Network), or Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) if not properly secured; or leveraging weak, default, or stolen employee credentials for remote access services.
Your Defense: Implement robust email security measures, including spam filtering, anti-phishing tools, and email sandboxing. Enforce the use of strong, unique passwords for all user accounts and, crucially, implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) across all accessible services, especially for email, VPN, and RDP. Regularly patch and update all public-facing systems and software to address known security vulnerabilities.
4. Execution: Running the Malicious Code
Hacker's Goal: To execute their malicious code on the compromised system, allowing them to further their objectives. This is when the burglar starts using their tools inside the house.
Hacker’s Process: This could involve a user unknowingly opening a malicious attachment in an email, triggering the execution of malware; a script running automatically after exploiting a vulnerability on a web server; or attackers using legitimate system administration tools already present on your systems (like PowerShell or command prompt, often referred to as "living off the land" tactics) to execute their malicious commands.
Your Defense: Deploy next-generation antivirus and Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) solutions that can detect and block malicious code execution based on behavior. Reinforce employee education about the dangers of opening suspicious files or clicking on unexpected links. Consider implementing application whitelisting for critical systems to restrict the execution of only authorized software.
5. Persistence: Maintaining Access
Hacker's Goal: To ensure they can maintain their access to your compromised systems even if you reboot the machine, change passwords, or implement other initial defensive actions. This is the burglar ensuring they have a way back in if the initial entry point is discovered.
Hacker's Process: Attackers might create new, hidden user accounts with administrative privileges; modify system startup configurations so their malicious code runs automatically every time the computer boots; schedule malicious tasks to execute at specific intervals; or install backdoors that allow them to regain access remotely.
Your Defense: Implement regular audits of user accounts to identify any unauthorized additions. Continuously monitor critical system files and startup configurations for unexpected changes. Implement and enforce strict access controls and review these permissions periodically.
6. Privilege Escalation: Gaining Higher Authority
Hacker's Goal: To elevate their access rights from the initial compromised user account to a higher level of authority, ideally gaining administrator or system-level privileges. This allows them to control more of your systems.
Hacker's Process: Attackers might exploit software vulnerabilities within your operating systems or applications, leverage misconfigurations in system settings or application permissions, or exploit weak service permissions to gain higher-level access.
Your Defense: Prioritize and implement a robust patch management process for all software and operating systems. Adhere to the principle of "least privilege," ensuring that users and applications only have the minimum level of permissions necessary to perform their legitimate tasks. Conduct regular vulnerability scans of your internal network and systems to identify and remediate potential weaknesses.
7. Defense Evasion: Hiding from Detection
Hacker's Goal: To avoid detection by your security tools (like antivirus or firewalls) and prevent your security team (if you have one) from noticing their activity. This is the burglar trying to move silently and avoid setting off alarms.
Hacker’s Process: This can involve disabling or bypassing antivirus software, using obfuscated or encrypted code to make their malware harder to analyze, leveraging legitimate system tools ("living off the land" binaries or LOLBins) to carry out malicious actions (as these tools are often whitelisted), or encrypting their command-and-control (C2) traffic to hide their communication with external servers.
Your Defense: Implement layered security measures. Don't rely on a single security product. Utilize behavioral monitoring capabilities within your security tools to detect unusual or suspicious activity, even if it involves legitimate tools being used maliciously. Train your employees to recognize and report any unusual system behavior, as this can be an early indicator of compromise.
8. Credential Access: Stealing Login Details
Hacker's Goal: To steal usernames, passwords, and other authentication credentials that will allow them to move laterally within your network and access sensitive data.
Hacker's Process: Common techniques include keylogging (silently recording keystrokes), credential dumping from system memory (e.g., extracting password hashes from the LSASS process on Windows systems), network sniffing (capturing unencrypted login information transmitted over the network), or tricking users into revealing their credentials through sophisticated phishing or social engineering tactics.
Your Defense: Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) across all services that support it. Enforce strong, complex, and unique password policies for all user accounts. Consider implementing Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions to tightly control and monitor access to highly sensitive administrative accounts.
9. Discovery: Mapping the Environment
Hacker's Goal: To gain a comprehensive understanding of your internal network layout, identify connected systems, discover shared drives and file servers, and pinpoint locations of valuable data. This is the burglar mapping out the interior of the house, looking for valuables.
Hacker's Process: Attackers will often run network scanning tools to identify active hosts and open ports, query Active Directory (if you use it) to gather information about users and groups, list files and directories on compromised systems and network shares, and attempt to identify critical servers or databases that hold valuable information.
Your Defense: Implement network segmentation to divide your network into isolated zones, limiting the potential impact of a breach. Configure host-based firewalls on individual systems to restrict unauthorized network connections. Enable and actively monitor security logs for unusual network scanning activity or suspicious attempts to access directory information.
10. Lateral Movement: Expanding the Foothold
Hacker's Goal: To move from the initially compromised system to other machines and servers within your network. This allows them to reach more valuable targets and evade detection.
Hacker's Process: Attackers might use stolen credentials to remotely log into other workstations or servers, exploit unpatched vulnerabilities on internal systems to "jump" between them, or leverage remote access protocols like RDP to navigate your network.
Your Defense: Enforce strong authentication (including MFA, even for internal systems where feasible). Implement strict RDP security policies, such as limiting access to only necessary users and using strong passwords and MFA. Reinforce network segmentation to contain breaches and limit lateral movement. Deploy EDR solutions on all endpoints, as these tools are designed to detect and alert on suspicious lateral movement techniques.
11. Collection: Gathering the Target Data
Hacker's Goal: To locate and gather the specific data they intend to steal, often consolidating it in a temporary "staging" area before exfiltration. This is the burglar gathering the jewelry and other valuables.
Hacker’s Process: This could involve searching for sensitive documents, financial records, customer databases, intellectual property, or personal information about your employees. Once located, they might compress or archive these files to make the exfiltration process more efficient.
Your Defense: Implement strict access controls and data loss prevention (DLP) policies based on the principle of "need-to-know." Monitor for large or unusual file creation, modification, or transfer activities within your network. Regularly back up all critical data to secure, offsite locations that are isolated from your primary network.
12. Exfiltration: Stealing the Data
Hacker's Goal: To extract the collected data from your compromised network to their own systems or controlled infrastructure outside your organization.
Hacker’s Process: Attackers might transfer the stolen data over common internet protocols like FTP or HTTP/S to external servers they control, leverage cloud storage services, or establish encrypted command-and-control tunnels to bypass basic network monitoring and firewall restrictions.
Your Defense: Implement network egress filtering on your firewall to restrict outbound connections to only necessary and known destinations. Consider implementing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions (though these can be complex to configure and manage for smaller SMBs). Closely monitor network traffic for unusually large outbound data transfers that might indicate data exfiltration.
13. Command and Control (C2): Maintaining Communication
Hacker's Goal: To establish and maintain covert communication channels with their compromised systems, allowing them to remotely control these systems, issue further commands, and potentially exfiltrate data.
Hacker’s Process: Attackers often try to blend their C2 traffic in with legitimate network activity by using common internet protocols like DNS or standard web ports (HTTP/S). They might also employ custom malware with built-in C2 capabilities that use sophisticated techniques to evade detection.
Your Defense: Implement DNS filtering and web proxies to monitor and control outbound internet traffic. Invest in network traffic analysis tools that can help detect anomalous communication patterns and identify potential C2 channels. Regularly review firewall logs for suspicious outbound connections or unusual DNS queries.
14. Impact: Achieving the Objective
Hacker's Goal: To finally achieve their ultimate objective, which almost always involves causing damage, disruption to your business operations, or direct financial gain.
Hacker's Process: This can manifest as encrypting your critical data and demanding a ransom for its release (ransomware), destroying essential files, disrupting your ability to conduct business, defacing your company website, or publicly exposing sensitive customer or employee information.
Your Defense: Robust, regularly tested data backups are absolutely paramount for recovering from destructive attacks like ransomware. Develop and thoroughly practice an incident response plan that outlines the steps to take in the event of a cybersecurity incident. Implement a comprehensive business continuity plan to ensure you can continue operating, even if parts of your infrastructure are compromised. Finally, consider cybersecurity insurance to help mitigate the potential financial losses associated with a cyberattack.
Your Proactive Defense Strategy: Building Resilience
Understanding these 14 stages of an attack, as defined by the MITRE ATT&CK framework, isn't about succumbing to fear, but rather about empowering your business to build a more resilient cybersecurity posture. Remember that cybersecurity is not a one-time purchase or a set-it-and-forget-it solution; it's a continuous process of assessment, implementation, and adaptation. Focus on establishing fundamental security controls: enforce strong authentication with MFA, maintain a rigorous patching schedule for all software, conduct regular and engaging employee cybersecurity awareness training, and implement reliable and regularly tested data backups. By adopting a layered security approach, you make each stage of the attack significantly more challenging for cyber adversaries.
Prepare Now, Protect Your Future
The outdated mindset that "we're too small to be a target" is a dangerous liability in today's threat landscape. By adopting the perspective of a hacker and understanding their methodical approach through the lens of the MITRE ATT&CK framework, you gain valuable insight into proactively protecting your business. Each of the 14 tactics outlined, represents a potential vulnerability, but also an opportunity for implementing a strong defense. Even small, consistent efforts focused on these key areas can dramatically increase your business's resilience against cyberattacks. Invest in your cybersecurity with the same dedication you apply to other critical aspects of your business. Proactive preparation is no longer optional – it is the most effective defense against the inevitable "when" of a cyberattack.
