How To Understand And Avoid Advanced Persistent Threats
Security Boulevard, Thursday, February 26th, 2026
By definition, an advanced persistent threat (APT) is a prolonged, targeted attack on a specific victim with the intention to compromise their system and gain information from or about that target.
About a decade ago, the term was mostly used for state-sponsored threat actors. I used threat actors here, because in the state where they operated from and for, they are not seen as cybercriminals. That perception changes, of course, when you're on the receiving end of such an attack.
When these threats were first identified, their targets were governments and military organizations. Nowadays, the target can be any person, organization or business. We commonly see attacks on healthcare, telecoms, finance, MSPs, SaaS platforms, and supply chain providers.