The Kill Chain

This chapter discusses how to deconstruct a kill chain to identify in which phases we could implement countermeasures, predict where a malicious act could occur, and intervene and mitigate the risk of user‐initiated loss (UIL). The kill chain is a military principle defining the structure or phases of an attack and is ultimately used to anticipate and predict an adversary's operations. The most well‐known military kill chain is known as F2T2EA. The end‐to‐end kill chain method of the F2T2EA kill chain is considered to be an integrated model because any interruption within the cycle has the potential to interrupt the entire process. Lockheed Martin, a large defense contractor, developed the Cyber Kill Chain to help defenders identify and stop cyber attacks. However, the Cyber Kill Chain also applies well to UIL.