It seems that lately, threats that were once were simply known as “malware” or “viruses” have been elevated to the status of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), a term that has strategically been used to strike fear in the hearts of consumers. These days, APTs have a much more common presence in the media, and some of the most notorious have included major global threats such as Ghostnet (a botnet deployed in various offices and embassies to monitor the Dalai Lama agenda), Shady RAT (like Ghostnet but with government and global corporate targets), Operation Aurora (a threat that monitored Chinese dissidents’ Gmail accounts in 2009) and Stuxnet (an attempt to disrupt Iran’s uranium enrichment program) in 2010
