cyberattack

noun

cy·​ber·​at·​tack ˈsī-bər-ə-ˌtak 

plural cyberattacks

: an attempt to gain illegal access to a computer or computer system for the purpose of causing damage or harm

An undermine-first strategy allows the United States government to intrude into adversaries' systems, exploiting this covert access to gather intelligence and occasionally to deliver a destructive cyberattack.

—Joshua A. Kroll

If your data is valuable enough, there is almost nothing you can do to provide total security against an expert adversary. Simply put, the attacker may be smarter than anyone you have defending the network. Cyberattacks are not only impossible to block, they're often difficult to detect; you may not even know you're under attack in the first place.

—Robert W. Lucky

cyberattacker

ˈsī-bər-ə-ˌta-kər 

noun

plural cyberattackers

Cyberattackers constantly evolve their skills and will always find new ways to attack—it's not a question of "if," but of "when."

—Eileen Dignen

Examples of cyberattack in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Dane Knecht, Cloudflare's chief technology officer, posted an apology for the outage around that time, ruling out the possibility of a cyberattack. —Max Zahn, ABC News, 18 Nov. 2025

Tusk and other European leaders have accused Russia of waging hybrid warfare against Ukraine’s allies, a strategy combining different unconventional tactics such as sabotage, cyberattacks and drone incursions, to undermine adversaries’ security. —Robert Birsel, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 Nov. 2025

However, the outage in July was caused by a technical issue, not a cyberattack. —Patrick Damp, CBS News, 16 Nov. 2025

The cyberattack exposed personal information linked to more than 10 million people. —Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 14 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1996, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for cyberattack

• ammoniac
• biofeedback
• counterattack
• demoniac
• elegiac
• noncardiac
• paranoiac
• aback
• anzac
• attack
• backpack
• backtrack