Threat actor is a term used in cybersecurity to describe any individual, group, or entity that intentionally conducts malicious activities against digital systems, networks, or data. Threat actors can vary widely in their sophistication, resources, motivations, and tactics, but their goal is typically to cause harm, gain unauthorized access, or disrupt operations.
Understanding the different types of threat actors and how they operate is critical for building effective security strategies, threat models, and incident response plans.
What is a threat actor?
A threat actor is anyone who initiates a cyberattack or malicious activity against an organization or its assets. Threat actors can be internal or external, human or automated, financially motivated or ideologically driven.
Threat actors may target:
- Sensitive or proprietary data
- Financial systems or transactions
- Critical infrastructure
- Intellectual property
- Cloud environments or SaaS platforms
They use a variety of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) such as phishing, malware deployment, lateral movement, credential theft, and privilege escalation to achieve their objectives.
Common types of threat actors
Threat actors are typically categorized based on their motivations and capabilities:
1. Cybercriminals
Financially motivated individuals or groups that seek to steal data, extort money (e.g., via ransomware), or conduct fraud.
2. Nation-state actors
Highly sophisticated actors backed by governments. They may conduct espionage, sabotage, or influence operations.
3. Hacktivists
Ideologically or politically motivated individuals or groups that seek to promote a cause by defacing websites, leaking data, or disrupting services.
4. Insider threats
Employees, contractors, or trusted third parties who misuse their access, either maliciously or negligently.
5. Script kiddies
Less-skilled individuals who use publicly available tools or exploits without fully understanding them.
6. Supply chain attackers
Actors who compromise vendors or third-party software in order to reach their actual targets.
Threat actor tactics and behaviors
Threat actors operate across the full cyber kill chain, using tactics such as:
- Reconnaissance: Scanning networks or public data for vulnerabilities or targets
- Initial access: Gaining entry through phishing, exploiting misconfigurations, or abusing credentials
- Persistence: Establishing footholds to maintain long-term access
- Lateral movement: Moving across systems to reach high-value assets or escalate privileges
- Exfiltration: Stealing data, intellectual property, or credentials
- Impact: Deploying ransomware, deleting data, or disrupting operations
Many actors leverage legitimate tools and credentials to evade detection, making behavioral analytics and context-aware monitoring crucial.
Identifying and defending against threat actors
Effective defense against threat actors involves:
- Threat intelligence: Consuming up-to-date information about known actor groups, tactics, and indicators of compromise (IOCs)
- User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA): Detecting deviations from normal activity patterns
- Identity and access management (IAM): Enforcing least privilege and strong authentication
- Endpoint and workload protection: Preventing malware execution and credential theft
- Cloud security posture management (CSPM): Identifying misconfigurations or exposed services in cloud environments
- Incident response planning: Preparing playbooks and escalation paths for responding to attacks
Security teams also use frameworks like the MITRE ATT&CK® framework to map known actor behaviors and improve detection capabilities.
How Orca Security helps
The Orca Cloud Security Platform empowers organizations to secure their cloud environments across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Kubernetes.
With Orca, security teams can:
- Gain full coverage of their cloud estate and development pipelines
- Detect, prioritize, and remediate cloud risks before threat actors can exploit them
- Leverage advanced Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) capabilities to detect suspicious activity, anomalies, and potentially malicious threats–both agentlessly and in real time
- Surface attack paths that endanger high-value assets and leverage targeted remediation to break the chains
- Integrate with threat intelligence and SIEM platforms to enrich investigations and automate response
By providing agentless, full-stack visibility with risk context, Orca helps security teams detect and respond to threat actors before damage is done.
