However, the most serious threats are posed by to governments who see hacking as a new front in warfare and are developing whole suites of advanced systems.  “Behind every cyber attack is a real human with motivations and ways of operating,” said Kevin Taylor , head BAE’s Applied Intelligence business which deals in the cyber sector. “Understanding the threat such as what motivates them and how they work is one of the best ways of defending against them.”  Dr Adrian Nish, the company’s head of cyber threat intelligence, said that criminals have “professionalised”. “We are seeing the industrialisation of cyber crime. They are running phone support scams, writing their own software that comes with service agreements and money-back guarantees if the code gets detected with the promise of a replacement” he said. “People really think it is a 9-to-5 job.”  The six types of cybercriminals identified by BAE are:  Mules Naive opportunists who may not even realise they work for criminal gangs to launder money. They can be caught up in cyber crime through online adverts promising the chance to make money working from home, often by laundering money for organised crime. Mr Nish said: “These scams can be very advanced, with training schemes for people teaching them how to answer questions from banks about where this money came from, and people may not at first realise they are involved in crime.” He added that when they do realise what they are caught up in, fear or greed can mean they continue with their illegal activities.  Professionals Career criminals who “work” in the digital shadows, but shy away from riskier crime such as bank robbery, instead using technology instead to lower the chances of getting caught. They might call victims pretending to be technical support to gain access to a target’s IT system. They might also think they are working for a genuine business at first, only later discovering the illegal nature of their employer or that they could even be working for a foreign nation.  People working directly or indirectly for their government, sometimes in uniform, to steal sensitive information and disrupt enemies’ capabilities or create international incidents. They are generally the most sophisticated cyber attackers, according to Mr Nish, with the most advanced capabilities. They don’t just target governments but also businesses, such as those running critical infrastructure such as power grids.  Seen as less of a threat are the other three types of hackers:  Those who take to the internet to promote their religion, politics or cause, who may not have the advanced skills of other hackers but can cause significant disruption or steal data to damage their targets.  People too young to be prosecuted, and get their name from they fact they are likely to receive only a slap on the wrist for their attacks, which are often just the application of downloaded code. However, Mr Nish said these youngsters could mature into more sophisticated cyber criminals, possibly even becoming “professionals”.  The “disillusioned, blackmailed or even over-helpful” employees operating from within a company, according to Mr Nish. “not all these people are like Edward Snowden, waking up one day to give up secrets,” he said. “They might just be people who take a contact list or bit or design document not thinking of the harm it could do.” They are also some of the hardest to defend against, according to Mr Nish, who said other factors such as HR can come into play to try to understand what motivates them and why and when they might cross the line.  The potential of BAE’s cyber business was highlighted in the FTSE 100 group’s annual results last week, with the company’s wider cyber and intelligence division posting annual sales by 11.5pc to £1.85bn, making it one of the fastest growing divisions of the £18bn a year group. Applied Intelligence’s revenues, which are part of the division, rose even faster, up 31pc to £500m, with more than half of that organic growth and the rest coming from acquisition.
Defence group BAE Systems faces “serious and persistent” cyber attacks twice a week from hackers trying to steal the defence giant’s secrets.