Attribution Glossary

Browse 6 attribution terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

6 Attribution Terms

Attribution License
A license that requires downstream users to give credit to the original creator when redistributing or reusing the work. In software and open content contexts,...
Cyber Attribution
Cyber Attribution is the analytical process of assessing who is responsible for malicious cyber activity and how confident that assessment is. Security teams...
False Flag
A deceptive tactic meant to make an intrusion, malware family, or campaign appear to come from a different actor than the real one. In cyber operations,...
Hat Tip
A brief acknowledgment or credit to someone who inspired, discovered, or contributed to an idea. It is common in writing, talks, and online threads.
Reverse DNS
A DNS lookup that maps an IP address back to a hostname using PTR records instead of resolving a hostname to an IP. Reverse DNS is useful in logging,...
Threat Actor
Any individual, group, or organization that poses a cybersecurity threat — from script kiddies to nation-state hacking units, from disgruntled insiders to...

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