Only a couple of years ago, cyber-criminals almost exclusively targeted Internet-connected end-users and companies. Now, high profile attacks target isolated, highly secure corporate or business environments. This paper describes the challenges of breaching such systems, achieving persistence for as long as possible and payload delivery mechanisms.
Ever since government and companies adopted the Internet on a massive scale, cyber-criminals have become interested in breaching these critical infrastructures and monetizing them in various ways, with particular focus on disruption and information theft.
The continuous siege from outside hostile parties has prompted businesses, enterprises, governments and mission-critical service companies such as utility providers to isolate their networks and render them inaccessible (or limit their accessibility) to the outside world. As a rule, the more critical the network is, the higher the degree of isolation.
read more........http://www.hotforsecurity.com/blog/penetrating-and-achieving-persistence-in-highly-secured-networks-5246.html