Glossary
Single Point of Failure
A single point of failure is a component that, if it fails or is compromised, brings down or bypasses the protection the rest of the system provides — a single policy engine every check depends on, a single identity provider every application trusts, a single administrator whose account holds unchecked authority. Its risk isn't about how unlikely failure is; it's about how total the consequence is when it happens.
Naming these components explicitly, rather than discovering them during an incident, is what allows a deliberate decision about each one: accept the risk because redundancy isn't practical, add genuine redundancy, or at minimum ensure the failure mode is detected quickly rather than silently.