Where once attackers were content to simply deface a website or gain notoriety through mass system disruption, they now realize that they can make significant money, steal important data, or interfere with major infrastructure systems via cyber warfare instead.

A targeted attack is a long-term cyber-espionage campaign against a person or organization to gain persistent access to the target network. This allows them to extract confidential company data and possibly damage the target network. These compromised networks can be used for attacks against other organizations, making it harder to trace the attack back to its originator.