There is Alice and there is Bob. But what is the name of the malicious user? I know it is a kinda funny and maybe even naive question but its still security related, so I decided to ask.
Bob and Alice are widely used names indicating the two end-users/parties for web protocols. But in security there is also a third entity, the malicious user. I read a blog post naming that entity &quot;Maria&quot;. I giggled and wondered:
Is &quot;Maria&quot; actually a well-established name for the malicious user, in the security industry?
That's a funny question, I think it depends on the kind of attack you're performing.
For example, when you're trying to eavesdrop a communication, it's usually &quot;Eve&quot; who's doing it.
For more generic attacks, &quot;Mallory&quot; (Coming from &quot;malice&quot;) is the most common choice.
As Stephen Ullrich pointed out in his comment, here's a list of all the commonly used characters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob