State sponsored hackers tend to target networks and third party technology suppliers often seeking to gain access to national infrastructure or other critical supply chains.
Hacking groups follow in the wake of these attacks, harnessing the malicious code used in state sponsored attacks, which is often available within hours on the dark web, to launch attacks on businesses that are often unaware that a new threat has emerged. Hackers then look for the weakest link in the chain, having honed their hacking skills to reduce data exfiltration timescales, in some cases to a matter of hours.