Cybersecurity Glossary

True Negative

A true negative occurs in cybersecurity when a negative detection occurs in a situation where there is a negative condition. In other words when an intrusion detection system (IDS) successfully ignores acceptable behaviour, or a vulnerability assessment detects no vulnerability in non-vulnerable software, or in attack surface management the platform or process ignores assets that are unrelated to an attack surface.

A true negative indicates that the system is performing as expected by looking for and finding no problems where none are present.

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