A consumable is a material or part that wears down during normal use and must be replaced. In cyber security, consumables matter because many systems depend on items with a limited lifespan: batteries in hardware tokens, toner or labels in secure printers, seals on tamper-evident devices, or media used for backups and logging.
Attackers may target consumables indirectly by forcing extra wear, delaying replacement, or exploiting stale parts that no longer perform reliably. Defenders plan for consumables with inventory controls, scheduled replacement, and monitoring for failure signs. Treating wear-out as part of the design helps prevent outages, preserve integrity, and avoid security gaps caused by degraded hardware or expired components.