Zero-Day - Zero-Minute Attack

A Zero-Day (or Zero-Minute) Attack is a type of attack that uses a previously unknown vulnerability. Because the attack is occurring before “Day 1” of the vulnerability being publicly known, it is said that the attack occurred on “Day 0” - hence the name. Zero-Day exploits are highly sought after - often bought and sold by private firms anywhere from $5,000 to $250,000, depending on what applications and operating systems they target - as they almost guarantee that an attacker is able to stealthily circumvent the security measures of his or her target. Private security firms aside, software vendors will also usually offer a monetary reward among other incentives to report zero-day vulnerabilities in their own software directly to them.