An attack surface is the total sum of vulnerabilities that can be exploited to carry out a security attack. Attack surfaces can be physical or digital. The term attack surface is often confused with the term attack vector, but they are not the same thing. The surface is what is being attacked; the vector is the means by which an intruder gains access.

In RBAC, access is based on the roles that users have within an organization, and permissions to perform certain operations are assigned to specific roles. DAC, on the other hand, is a type of access control where the access rights are determined by the owner of the resource or the resource itself.