Glossary of Terms: Public Disclosures

Terminology relating to Public Disclosures:

Account Takeover

When an attacker uses legitimate consumer (non-employee) account credentials that were obtained from an unknown source.

ATM/Skimmer

A physical attack that involves access to an Automated Teller Machine (ATM), where they may have used a skimming device to gather data from payment cards.

Crimeware

A pattern with a moniker that accurately describes a common theme among such incidents. The pattern covers a broad swath of incidents involving malware of varied types and purposes.

DoS

A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack is intended to compromise the availability of networks and systems. This includes both network and application layer attacks.

Error

Incidents involving unintentional actions that directly compromise a security attribute of an information asset. This does not include lost devices, which is grouped with theft instead.

Lost/Stolen Asset

Any incident where an information asset went missing, whether through misplacement or malice.

Phishing

An attack in which fraudulent email is used to masquerade as an employee or as a legitimate contact.

Privilege Abuse

Any unapproved or malicious use of organizational resources.

Ransomware

A type of malware that prevents users from accessing their system or personal files, typically through encryption. It’s an attack that’s designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid. Payment is demanded to regain access or the attacker threatens to publish the data.

Unknown

The fact pattern is unknown.

Unsecured Database

A database is left unsecured due to error and the data is accessible by third parties.

Web Apps

Any incident in which a web application was the vector of attack. This includes exploits of code level vulnerabilities in the application as well as thwarting authentication mechanisms.