Protecting the United States Defense Industrial Base against advanced persistent threat attacks

The Defense Industrial Base (DIB) is one of 16 segments of the U.S. Critical Infrastructure. Its confidentiality, integrity and availability of information, products and services are of vital importance to United States national security. Due to the importance of the DIB it is an attractive high value target for nation states wishing to steal technology, disrupt and do harm. The purpose of this research paper is to highlight the threat of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) from four nations states; China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, and compare their preferred tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for gaining and maintaining persistence in the networks of the U.S. DIB. Analysis of nation states preferred attack paths will be compared to the MITRE ATT&CK framework.