Blended Threat

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What Does Blended Threat Mean?

A blended threat is a type of exploit that uses multiple techniques to attack a system. The definition is broad, but this generally means propogating in multiple ways as well as attempting to use multiple vulnerabilities in the target system.

Techopedia Explains Blended Threat

To give a simplified example, a blended approach might send an e-mail with an attachment to the targeted computer. While the initial payload could be a virus in the attachment, it could also have worm-like capabilities to spread after making the original infection. Real life examples of blended threat programs include CodeRed and Bugbear.

A significant percentage of modern malware are actually blended threats even though they are referred to as a “worm” or “virus.” This is especially true with botnets where exploits involve multiple forms of propagation, trojan-horse like functionality, and then the capability to launch a coordinated denial of service attack.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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