Adversary Archetypes

Adversary archetypes contain realistic details of generalized adversaries’ capacities and highlight communities that adversaries expend resources to undermine. Archetypes can illuminate the various motivations, favored means of attack, and resources being used by malicious actors without naming or identifying specific adversaries, which can be dangerous for at-risk organizations or communities. Adversary archetypes can serve as an educational resource for organizations and communities wishing to better understand their threat models and can guide the design and adoption of security mitigations and countermeasures. Organizations will be able to use these resources to anticipate potential threats and malicious actions and proactively develop practices and responses to realistic situations.

Archetypes will enable developers, trainers, policymakers, funders, and others to contextualize their work against a wider variety of threat actors without having to rely on any one specific nation-state. They will enable richer conversation around real threats while removing cultural stereotypes and prejudices. In addition, archetypes enable organizations to articulate to funders and other community members the type of threats they face and the need to prioritize security when allocating funding.