adversariesthat

Adversariesthat is a neologism used in risk assessment and security literature to refer collectively to the set of adversaries that might threaten a system, organization, or domain. The term functions as a compound of “adversaries” and the relative pronoun “that,” and is typically used in discussions about threat modeling to denote the group of threat actors rather than any single actor. While not a canonical term in most security taxonomies, adversariesthat appears in some blogs, white papers, and forums as a shorthand for the adversaries that are relevant to a given context.

In practice, addressing adversariesthat involves identifying who could act as adversaries, their motives, capabilities, and opportunities. Analysts classify them by factors such as intent (financial gain, espionage, disruption), resources (opportunistic vs well-resourced), skill level, and access to potential attack vectors. Techniques for evaluating this set include risk scoring, scenario development, and adversary emulation exercises. The output is used to prioritize defenses, allocate resources, and guide security controls.

Relation to established frameworks: adversariesthat is often aligned with threat modeling approaches and can map to categories in the MITRE ATT&CK framework or similar taxonomies. It supports a flexible, context-dependent view of threats rather than a fixed list of actors. Critically, the concept emphasizes that defenses should be informed by the specific adversaries most likely to target a system, rather than by generic threat narratives.