Observed
A condition SCOUTz saw from a disclosed source at a recorded time.
GLOSSARY
Use words that keep the evidence honest.
These definitions create consistent language across SCOUTz pages, assessment screens, reports, work plans, QBRs, and MSP-client conversations.
Verified
A conclusion directly supported by an authoritative source or completed validation.
Inferred
A conclusion supported by evidence but not directly proven by the available source.
Possible
A plausible condition or opportunity that still requires investigation.
Unknown
A state the available evidence cannot establish. Unknown is not clean or safe.
Unreadable
A source could not be read because of format, availability, permission, access, or another disclosed limitation.
Read-only assessment
An assessment that reads supported public or authorized configuration and metadata without making changes.
Attack surface
The externally or internally reachable assets, identities, applications, services, and trust relationships that could be targeted.
OAuth consent
Authorization that grants an application defined permissions to access supported resources on behalf of a user or organization.
Application governance
Inventorying applications, permissions, owners, use, credentials, risk, and lifecycle decisions.
Guided remediation
Evidence-linked investigation and implementation guidance that still requires MSP validation, approval, and change control.
Work plan
An owned sequence of remediation tasks, dependencies, effort, delivery path, and verification criteria.
Rescan
A later assessment of the same observable condition used to compare the current state with a recorded baseline.
Verification
Evidence that a target condition changed or a validation step succeeded; it is scoped to what was actually checked.
3AM Test
Six operational questions covering monitoring, recovery, escalation, recent review, security basics, and active threat response.
Signal expiry
The date after which an event or observation should be refreshed before it supports a current conclusion.
Your next prospect meeting is already on the calendar.
Bring dated evidence, clear limits, and useful questions.