Information Security Handbook

Nation state

A nation state attacker is an attacker that is sponsored by the government of a country. These types of adversaries are highly skilled and have immense resources at their disposal. Nation state activities can best be described in terms of cyber warfare where the nation state actor is motivated to engage in espionage and/or sabotage against another country. The nation states' motivations include military targets, national critical infrastructure, acts of political hacktivism, terrorism, and private sector or non-profit intellectual property.