Cyber defenses in our advanced persistent threat (APT)’s world.

It is very complex to talk about Cyber defenses in our digital-driven world where nation-state cyber-attacks, advanced persistent threat (APT), and polymorphic malicious binaries threaten our infatuation for digital services. 

Cyber threats are becoming increasingly more sophisticated: from rudimentary and standard malicious binaries, often referred to as viruses; cybercriminal community continuously modify the way that their malicious binaries or executables appeared, such that signatures could no longer be applied effectively. 

As of this reality, henceforth, we talk about polymorphic malicious binaries: the modification of the way the executable looks, without executing it. If the code of the binary looks different, the signature for the code will also be different, rendering signature based defenses, such as those often included in antivirus solutions, ineffective. 

This new form of malware is advanced persistent threat (APT), including polymorphic malicious binaries and other attributes. 

According to Research and Markets APTs are the result of lessons learned by malicious actors from nation-state cyber-attacks, such as GhostNet and Stuxnet.