Glossary
Every term MindVault uses, defined once. The same sentence appears here, in the article that introduces the term, in that article's structured data, and in the file we hand to AI assistants.
The market blends these words freely. This page does not. Each entry is the one definition MindVault uses, followed by the article that introduces it at length. Terms are grouped by what they describe: the category itself, what goes wrong after login, the evidence MindVault works from, and what happens when confidence drops.
The words MindVault uses for the problem it works on and the measure it produces.
A framework for maintaining an ongoing, evidence-based assessment of whether authorized control of a session persists, combining behavioral, device, identity, and contextual signals into one confidence measure.
Introduced in Continuous Authentication vs. Session Monitoring vs. Continuous Identity Confidence · Also in Completing Zero Trust with Continuous Identity Confidence
The live output of Continuous Identity Confidence: a High, Medium, Low, or Insufficient confidence level for the person operating a session, measured throughout the session. It is delivered to the SIEM, SOAR, or service the organization chooses, and the organization's own policy decides what happens next.
Explained on the Technology page
The condition in which a session remains technically authorized while the organization holds no direct evidence about who is operating it, allowing unauthorized activity to continue under legitimate access until something else notices.
Introduced in The Cost of Identity Uncertainty: What Happens After MFA
The property a session has when the entity operating it, moment to moment, is still the entity it was issued to.
Introduced in The Operator Problem · Also in NIST SP 800-63B-4 and the Future of Session Monitoring
Also called Post-Authentication Gap
The span between a successful login and the end of a session, where most security checks stop asking who is operating. A valid session no longer guarantees that a trusted operator is in control.
Introduced in The Security Gap After Authentication
The protection of an account after authentication succeeds, continuously verifying that the person operating a session is still the enrolled user and responding when confidence drops.
Introduced in Authentication Ends. Trust Shouldn't.
The distance between knowing a session is authorized and having direct evidence about who is operating it right now.
Introduced in IAM vs. ITDR vs. EDR vs. UEBA: Where Operator Continuity Fits
The attacks and tradeoffs that happen inside a session that every credential check has already approved.
A phishing technique that proxies a genuine login page so the victim authenticates for real, completes MFA, and unknowingly hands the attacker a valid session token. Every credential check passes because every credential was real.
Introduced in Session Hijacking in 2026: The Attack That Bypasses MFA
An attacker whose operation is carried out by an AI agent rather than a human-driven toolkit.
Introduced in AI Agents Need Identity Too
The sequence of attacker actions carried out inside an already authenticated session, after credentials and MFA have been satisfied.
Introduced in How Modern Attackers Operate Inside Trusted Sessions
A structural weakness of language model agents in which untrusted input is interpreted as instructions, letting an attacker redirect the agent's behavior.
Introduced in AI Agents and the New Attack Surface
The moment a different person or process takes over a session that is already signed in.
Explained on the Technology page
The theft or takeover of an active authenticated session, usually by stealing the session token that proves authentication already happened.
Introduced in Session Hijacking in 2026: The Attack That Bypasses MFA
The security versus productivity tension between short session tokens that log users out often and long tokens that widen the window for session theft.
Introduced in The Token Duration Tradeoff
How MindVault gathers what it needs, and what it refuses to collect.
A security signal derived from how a person interacts (timing, rhythm, and movement), used to judge operator continuity rather than environmental metadata alone.
Introduced in From Alert Fatigue to Behavioral Signal
MindVault's design principle: measure how a person interacts (timing, rhythm, movement, and cadence), not what they write, view, or communicate. The signal comes from rhythm, not words.
Introduced in Content-Blind Behavioral Telemetry: Security Signals Without Reading the Work
Repeatedly reevaluating identity evidence while a session runs, rather than once at login. Industry usage often means periodic re-checks of identity factors; MindVault uses Operator Continuity for the outcome being protected and Continuous Identity Confidence for the framework that measures it.
Introduced in Continuous Authentication vs. Session Monitoring vs. Continuous Identity Confidence
The independent categories of continuity evidence: behavioral, the human pattern at the controls; provenance, where inputs and tokens actually come from; device, endpoint state and processes; identity, account and policy state; and context, network, time, and location.
Introduced in When a Valid Session Changes Hands: The Evidence Behind Each Takeover
The ongoing evaluation of an authenticated session's characteristics, such as usage patterns, timing, behavioral traits and device or network signals, as described in NIST SP 800-63B-4. NIST notes it is sometimes called continuous authentication; MindVault treats it as the capability that gathers the evidence for Operator Continuity.
Introduced in NIST SP 800-63B-4 and the Future of Session Monitoring
What happens when confidence drops, and where protection starts.
Judging session monitoring technology by the evidence it evaluates, the question that evidence answers, and its behavior when confidence is wrong, rather than by labels like continuous, AI-powered, or behavioral.
Introduced in 12 Questions to Ask Before Evaluating Session Monitoring
Matching the strength of a security response to both the change in confidence and the consequence of the action being attempted. Response follows confidence, consequence, and policy together.
Introduced in Continuous Authentication Without Constant Lockouts: The Proportionate Response Model
Beginning continuity protection with the users and workflows where a loss of authorized control produces the greatest financial, operational, or security damage, then expanding as measured results justify it.
Introduced in Privileged Sessions: Where Losing Operator Continuity Costs the Most
A proportionate response in which a session whose confidence has dropped is asked for another verification factor before a sensitive action goes through, rather than being terminated outright. The first rung above observation on the response ladder.
Introduced in Continuous Authentication Without Constant Lockouts: The Proportionate Response Model
Missing a term you expected? The Resources FAQ answers the questions security teams ask first, and the comparison page sets these terms beside the controls you already run.
