Explain like I'm five · Security
What is TLP?
The Traffic Light Protocol, told as a story about secret letters.
Every secret letter gets a colored sticker.It answers: "how far can I pass this on?"
Each color is a bigger circle.Red is just me. Clear is the whole world.
REDonly who got it
AMBERinside our castle
GREENour village
CLEARanyone
Keep the promise, and you'll hear the next secret.Spread it, and your friend stops telling you things.
In one breath
TLP = a color that says how far a secret may travel.
Traffic Light Protocol. The current version is 2.0 (2022): WHITE became CLEAR, and AMBER+STRICT was added.
When grown-ups say it
- TLP:RED
- Recipients only. Heard it in a meeting? Stays in that room.
- TLP:AMBER
- Inside our organization. Colleagues and clients who need it.
- TLP:AMBER+STRICT
- Our organization only. Not even clients.
- TLP:GREEN
- Our community. Peers in the same field. Never the open internet.
- TLP:CLEAR
- Anyone. Free to publish. Used to be called WHITE.
- FIRST
- Who wrote the rules. A global forum of security response teams. Published TLP 2.0.
Next story
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