attack surface
nounid
1553·updated May 9, 2026candidate
The set of ways in which an adversary can enter a system and potentially cause damage.
MWE
Classifications
Entity Type
Vulnerability85%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5
Sensitivity
—95%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5
Information Class
—95%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5
Variants
- plural
- attack surfaces
- possessive
- attack surface's
- pluralpossessive
- attack surfaces'
Framework definitions
National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS) Cybersecurity Lexicon1 senseview framework →
- §1 · extended_definition_available
- The set of ways in which an adversary can enter a system and potentially cause damage.
- §1
- The sum of an information system’s characteristics in the broad categories (software, hardware, network, processes and human) which allows an attacker to probe, enter, attack or maintain a presence in the system and potentially cause damage to an FMI. A smaller attack surface means that the FMI is less exploitable and an attack less likely.
Outgoing relationships
No outgoing triples
This term is not the subject of any RDF-style relationship yet.
Incoming relationships
No incoming triples
No other term currently asserts a relationship to this one.