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Hacker Personas: The Opportunist

A Deeper Look Into Cybercrime

Published March 2021
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Opportunists capitalize on unpreparedness, often exploiting common human traits such as trust and familiarity. They rely on targeted or focused attacks, and carry out their crimes against specific businesses or individuals. They are usually well planned, with hackers thoroughly researching their victims and running tests before performing an actual attack. What’s more, opportunists look for existing weaknesses or vulnerabilities they can exploit en masse to pull as many victims as possible into their nets. In fact, by August 2020, the FBI saw a 300% increase in cybercrime related to attacks of opportunity.