cyberattack

a.k.a. online corporate espionage

The latest of all cyber threats, this form of digital attack is aimed towards businesses and government agencies and is designed to capture sensitive information from key insiders' computers.

Many "cyberattack" crime groups in Eastern Europe and Asia spy on employee PCs that have access to high profile and confidential data, resulting in credit card fraud, access to bank account information, and other valuable data.

Often times cyber attacks are launched through an email attachment that contains a malevolent code, and when opened, installs a tiny program on the victim's PC that will eventually copy the desired sensitive information. These emails may appear innocent, even disguised as an email coming from a business associate, making cyberattacks very difficult to detect.

See also : cyberterrorism  cyberwar  
NetLingo Classification: Online Jargon

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