The Map Is Not the Territory
Polish-American scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski remarked that “the map is not the territory” and that “the word is not the thing”, encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself. Korzybski held that many people do confuse maps with territories, that is, confuse conceptual models of reality with reality itself. 1
They have to be, because maps are reductions of what they represent. If a map were to represent the territory with perfect fidelity, it would no longer be a reduction and thus would no longer be useful to us. A map can also be a snapshot from a point in time, representing something that no longer exists.2
When it comes to MITRE ATT&CK or the Cyber Kill Chain, maps frequently used in Information Security, it is important to remember that they are merely reductions of adversary’s behaviours, not reality itself.
Relevant Note(s):