threat

Threat is a potential cause of an unwanted incident, injury, or loss. It denotes an event or actor that could exploit a vulnerability to breach security, disrupt operations, or compromise assets. In risk management, threat is distinguished from vulnerability (a weakness) and risk (the product of likelihood and impact). A threat may remain hypothetical or become realized as an incident.

Threat modeling and assessment identify assets, plausible threat agents, and exploitable weaknesses, then prioritize defenses by evaluating likelihood and potential impact. Threat intelligence compiles data on active threats, actors, and techniques to inform defenses, detection, and response planning.

Threats arise in many domains. Natural threats include floods, earthquakes, and diseases; technological threats include cyberattacks, malware, and system failures; and human threats include theft, manipulation, insider misconduct, and sabotage. Complex incidents often involve multiple overlapping threats, such as a cyber intrusion combined with a supply-disruption event.

Threat actors range from criminals and insiders to hacktivists and state-sponsored groups, each with different capabilities and motives. Effective risk management combines preventive controls, continuous monitoring, incident response, backups, and business continuity planning to reduce exposure and enable recovery.