Risk management company Gate 15’s newest white paper provides a fresh update to the Hostile Event Attack Cycle (HEAC). The report, The Hostile Event Attack Cycle (HEAC), 2021 Update, examines the seven phases threat actors utilize when planning and conducting attacks. The purpose of this analysis is to provide an understanding of the HEAC, “which can help organizations prepare for various threat courses of actions and develop enhanced security measures as necessary to potentially disrupt threat actors’ planning and to enable the organization to be prepared to respond appropriately.” Similar to previous articles in the HEAC series, this white paper cites real-world examples along with other detailed analysis demonstrating that threat actors consistently follow the phases identified in the HEAC when planning, preparing, and executing an attack. Additionally, the report provides some mitigation strategies which can be used for early indications of an attack and steps to possibly disrupt a hostile event. Access the full white paper here.

WaterISAC previously discussed the HEAC, including when it wrote about a series of articles on the HEAC published by Homeland Security Today in 2018 (access the first, second, and third articles) and hosted a webinar with Gate 15 in January 2020 (access the recording and presentation here).