# What is a Cyberattack?

> A cyberattack is a deliberate action or attempted action conducted through digital systems or communications to gain unauthorized access to, compromise, disrupt, manipulate, or otherwise affect systems, networks, services, data, or cyber-enabled operations.

- Canonical URL: https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cyberattack/
- Publisher: Yellow Cube
- Language: en
- Contact: hello@yellowcube.eu

## Content

Objectives can include stealing or exposing information, altering data, disrupting availability, abusing computing resources, or producing physical or operational effects through digitally enabled functions.

An attack does not have to succeed. Understanding one requires evidence about the actor’s actions, target, methods, intent, access, and effects, while clearly separating confirmed facts from analytic judgments and unresolved possibilities.

### Key points

- **Common paths:** Attackers may exploit software flaws, abuse valid credentials, deceive people, misuse exposed services, compromise suppliers, introduce malicious code, or act through authorized insider access.
- **Outcome description:** Record attempted and successful actions, affected assets, persistence, data access or change, service and safety effects, and the confidence and evidence supporting each conclusion.
- **Evidence-based response:** Preserve relevant records, contain unsafe access, remove attacker persistence, correct exploited conditions, restore trustworthy operation, monitor for recurrence, and update defenses from lessons learned.
- **Important limitation:** An alert, vulnerability, outage, or unusual event does not by itself establish a cyberattack. Attribution, malicious intent, initial access, and impact may remain uncertain, and different operational or legal frameworks define attack and incident differently.

### Related terms

[Cybersecurity](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cybersecurity/>) · [Cyber risk](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cyber-risk/>) · [Incident response (IR)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/incident-response/>) · [Exploit](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/exploit/>) · [Cyber threat intelligence (CTI)](<https://yellowcube.eu/glossary/cyber-threat-intelligence/>)

### Sources

[NIST SP 800-30 Rev. 1, Guide for Conducting Risk Assessments](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/30/r1/final) · [NIST SP 800-82 Rev. 3, Guide to Operational Technology Security](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/82/r3/final) · [NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3, Incident Response Recommendations and Considerations for Cybersecurity Risk Management](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/61/r3/final)

## Attribution and scope

This Markdown representation is generated from the same approved content records as the canonical HTML page. Cite the canonical URL above when referencing this material. Product and service descriptions are informational; confirm project-specific requirements with Yellow Cube.