-: OVAL.
The Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language,
or OVAL as it's known, is a standard
that was designed to regulate the transfer
of secure public information across networks
and the internet to utilize any security tools
and services available at the time.
Now, what does this really mean in layman's terms?
Well, OVAL is an attempt to create a standard
way for vulnerability management software,
scanners and other tools to share their data
with each other and with other programs.
Now, just like I can send you a photograph
saved as a JPEG file, and pretty much every
program knows how to open it and display
that information properly, because they all
understand what the JPEG format looks like,
well, that's what OVAL does,
but for vulnerability assessment information.
Now, OVAL is comprised of two different parts.
There's a language component to it,
and an interpreter.
The OVAL Language is written as an XML schema
that's used to define and describe the information
that's being created by the OVAL Language,
and it's allowing it to be shared
among various programs and tools.
Now, the OVAL Interpreter on the other hand
is a reference model that was developed
to make sure that the information being passed
around by all of these programs,
it actually complies with the OVAL schemas
and definitions that the language created.
Because OVAL can be used by lots of different tools,
it has become a large part of vulnerability assessments,
patch management, auditing, the sharing
of threat indicators, and multiple other uses.
Now, for the Security+ exam,
you just have to remember that OVAL stands for
the Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language,
and that it's used to share data between lots
of different tools that are focused on
vulnerability assessments and management.
And if you do that, you're going to do just fine.
(electronic buzzing)