Difference between Threat and Attack

Threat is a possible security violation that might exploit the vulnerability of a system or asset. The origin of the threat may be accidental, environmental (natural disaster), human negligence, or human failure. Difference types of security threats are an interruption, interception, fabrication, and modification. Attack is a deliberate unauthorized action on a system or asset. Attacks can be classified as active and passive attacks. An attack will have a motive and will follow a method when the opportunity arises. 

Prerequisite – System Security Threat and attacks are two important events from a security perspective. It is really important to understand the difference between both from the perspective of network security.

The difference between threat and attack are:

THREAT	ATTACK
Can be intentional or unintentional	Is intentional
May or may not be malicious	Is malicious
Circumstance that has the ability to cause damage	Objective is to cause damage
Information may or may not be altered or damaged	Chance for information alteration and damage is very high
Comparatively hard to detect	Comparatively easy to detect
Can be blocked by control of vulnerabilities	Cannot be blocked by just controlling the vulnerabilities
Can be initiated by the system itself as well as by outsider	Is always initiated by an outsider (system or user)
Can be classified into Physical threat, internal threat, external threat, human threat, and non-physical threat.	Can be classified into Virus, Spyware, Phishing, Worms, Spam,  Botnets, DoS attacks, Ransomware, Breaches.

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