CLV stands for customer lifetime value: the total expected revenue a customer will generate over the full relationship with a business. It is a finance and analytics metric, but it matters in cyber security because attackers often target the accounts and services with the highest long-term value.
In practice, a high-CLV customer may hold stored payment data, loyalty points, premium subscriptions, or access to enterprise systems. That makes the account more attractive for phishing, credential stuffing, and account takeover. Defenders use CLV to prioritize controls: stronger authentication, fraud detection, step-up verification, and tighter monitoring can be focused on the customers whose compromise would cause the greatest loss. CLV also helps incident response teams judge which accounts need immediate containment and review.