Cyber Threat Landscape — Definition

Definition

The cyber threat landscape is the changing set of actors, weaknesses, methods and consequences that can undermine digital systems and their users. It includes criminal fraud, disruption, unauthorised access, manipulation of information and failures involving suppliers or insiders.

A threat is a potential cause of harm, a vulnerability is a weakness, and risk depends on the likelihood and impact of a harmful event in a particular context. Understanding the landscape means prioritising plausible scenarios and institutional responses rather than treating every incident as the same kind of attack or using a large reported count as a count of unique victims.