Types of Threats

Security threats are divided into two categories: External Threats and Internal Threats.

External Threats are threats that originate outside of an organization or system, primarily from the environment in which the organization or system operates.

Conversely, Internal Threats emerge from inside the system or company, with the primary contributors being employees, contractors, or suppliers to whom work is outsourced. Internal Threats mainly have a form of fraud, misuse of information, and/or destruction of information, and account for about 80% of all security incidents.

The following slides divide External and Internal threats into groups and provide examples of each group of threats.

Some of the attack examples / names on slides 10 – 12, especially under the Network, Software, and Human threat groups might be unfamiliar to you yet; no worries, as we will cover those terms in the upcoming topics!