A frame is a single still image inside a video stream. Video is built by sending frames in sequence fast enough that motion appears continuous. In a camera pipeline, each frame passes through capture, processing, compression, transport, and display. If any stage slows down, the stream may lag, drop frames, or show outdated scenes.
Frames matter in cybersecurity because many systems depend on timely visual data: surveillance cameras, access control monitoring, OCR, and machine-vision defenses. An attacker who can delay, drop, or replace frames may confuse an operator or weaken automated detection. Defenders watch for frame loss, unusual latency, and inconsistent timestamps to spot tampering or resource exhaustion. On small devices, like embedded cameras, frame handling is often a key part of troubleshooting slow or unreliable video.