bad actor
1
8.1
- noun
- /bæd ˈæktər/
- Specialized
:
agente malicioso
- The IT team investigated the system breach caused by a bad actor that installed malware on the network.
- bad actors abusing
- bad actors taking
And it's that they created a honeypot for bad actors like that to go into, right?
- And it's that they created a honeypot for bad actors like that to go into, right?
- Nation states have them, Some high-powered bad actors have them.
- Well, and bad actors have used the Internet and, and my career has prospered because of the Internet.
Examples
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Guy Rosen, Meta's chief information security officer, told reporters that from a bad actor's perspective, ChatGPT is the new crypto.
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Nation states have them, Some high-powered bad actors have them.
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And it's that they created a honeypot for bad actors like that to go into, right?
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Well, and bad actors have used the Internet and, and my career has prospered because of the Internet.
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We also knew that there's always bad actors that will infiltrate large crowds.
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And even those that use encryption on their servers can be compromised by a bad actor at the company who has access to the encryption keys.
Blog text (29) -
Many companies are improving their security measures to protect against bad actors that could steal sensitive information.
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In the world of cybersecurity, knowing how to identify a bad actor can help prevent significant data loss.
Synonyms
415
3.0
A person who goes against others or causes harm
272
3.3
A person who does very bad things, often the main bad character in a story
104
1.6
A person who harms others on purpose or does wrong things
16
4.4
A person in a group who causes trouble for others
15
7.5
A person who does bad things to hurt other people
1
7.7
A man who does cruel or wrong things in stories
How Malicious
- Specialized
8
7.9
- Specialized
26
7.4
- Specialized
43
4.3
- Specialized
1
8.1
- Texting
79
3.9
35
6.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is partially derivable: 'bad' (harmful) + 'actor' (one who acts) would lead a B1 learner to infer 'someone/something that does harm' or 'someone who behaves badly.' However, the specific cybersecurity sense (a malicious non-human agent, e.g. malware or a bot) is a technical extension and the non-human/technical nuance is not fully predictable from the constituents alone, making it only partially transparent.
Etymology
Bad actor in computing uses the same image: imagine an actor on stage who is really a hidden program or robot that breaks the rules or steals things, so people call a harmful program or agent in a system a 'bad actor'.