An attribute is any distinctive feature, characteristic, or property of an object that can be identified or isolated quantitatively or qualitatively by either human or automated means.
Source(s):
CNSSI 4009-2015 from ISO/IEC 27000

  A distinct characteristic of an object often specified in terms of their physical traits, such as size, shape, weight, and color, etc., for real -world objects. Objects in cyberspace might have attributes describing size, type of encoding, network address, etc.
Source(s):
NIST SP 800-95 under Attribute from Web Services Glossary - W3C Working Group Note 11 February 2004

  A quality or characteristic ascribed to someone or something.
Source(s):
NIST SP 800-63-3 under Attribute

  characteristic or property of an entity that can be used to describe its state, appearance, or other aspect
Source(s):
NISTIR 8053 from ISO/IEC 24760-1:2011

  A property or characteristic of a computing product. CPE 2.2 commonly used the term “component” instead of “attribute”. CPE 2.3 uses the term “attribute” to clarify the distinction between CPE:2.2 name “components” and computing components, such as software modules. Examples of CPE:2.3 attributes are part, vendor, product, and version. CPE attributes and their value constraints are defined in the CPE Naming specification [CPE23-N:5.2, 5.3].
Source(s):
NISTIR 7696 under Attribute

  Information associated with a key that is not used in cryptographic algorithms, but is required to implement applications and applications protocols.
Source(s):
NIST SP 800-57 Part 1 Rev. 3 [Superseded] under Attribute

  See Attribute
Source(s):
NIST SP 800-57 Part 1 Rev. 3 [Superseded] under Key attribute

  A claim of a named quality or characteristic inherent in or ascribed to someone or something. (See term in [ICAM] for more information.)
Source(s):
NIST SP 800-63-2 [Superseded] under Attribute