History of Security Attacks

• 2000s: An increase in attacks, which became financially motivated (pharms, financial, identity theft.) Attackers found out and use personal information about their victims to build trust and lure them into giving out confidential information (e.g., passwords, credit card numbers, etc.,) an activity called spear-phishing.
• 2010s to Present: Attacks, now made by attacker groups rather than individuals, became mainly politically and sometimes financially motivated. They further divide into government-driven attacks, example of which are Stuxnet, Flame, Aurora, and private activism, such as Anonymous and Wikileaks.