Security(181 terms)

A full list of the Security terms and explanations covered by ITBGM. Use the search box below to filter by term name. Each term links to a page with a more detailed, engineer-oriented explanation.

ABAC Authentication & Authorization
An access-control approach that decides access based on attributes of the user and resource.
Access Token Authentication & Authorization
Temporary credentials used to access an authorized resource.
Act on the Protection of Personal Information Compliance
Japan's law governing the proper handling of personal information.
Adware Malware
Nuisance software that displays unwanted advertisements.
AES Encryption
A symmetric-key encryption algorithm in widespread use today.
Air Gap Firewalls
A defense technique that physically isolates a critical system from external networks, including the internet.
APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) Malware
A sophisticated attacker or attack campaign that targets a specific organization and remains hidden inside it over a long period while evading detection.
Audit Log Compliance
A log recorded so that who did what can be traced.
Authentication Authentication & Authorization
Confirming that a user is who they claim to be.
Authentication Bypass Vulnerabilities
Accessing a system by circumventing the legitimate authentication process.
Authorization Authentication & Authorization
Deciding which actions an authenticated user is permitted to perform.
Biometric Authentication Authentication & Authorization
An authentication method that verifies identity using physical traits such as a fingerprint or face.
Block Cipher Encryption
An encryption method that splits data into fixed-size blocks before encrypting.
Blue Team Incident Response
The defending team responsible for detecting and responding to an attack.
Botnet Malware
A network of many infected devices controlled remotely as a group.
Buffer Overflow Vulnerabilities
An attack that writes data past an allocated region to cause malfunction.
Bug Bounty Vulnerabilities
A program that pays a reward to whoever reports a vulnerability they've found.
Business Continuity Plan Incident Response
A plan (BCP) for continuing business operations even during a disaster or incident.
Business Email Compromise Malware
Fraud that impersonates a business partner or executive to trick a victim into transferring money.
C2 Server Malware
A command server attackers use to remotely control infected devices.
CASB Cloud Security
A mechanism for gaining visibility into cloud service usage and applying policy.
Certificate Encryption
Data by which a third party certifies that a public key belongs to its claimed owner.
Certificate Authority Encryption
An organization that issues certificates and vouches for their trustworthiness.
CIS Benchmarks Compliance
A guideline collecting secure configuration standards for OSes and middleware.
CIS Controls Compliance
A practical security guideline that prioritizes actions for defending against cyberattacks.
Clickjacking Web Security
An attack that disguises what's on screen to trick a user into an unintended click.
Cloud Shared Responsibility Model Cloud Security
The idea that security responsibility is divided between a cloud provider and its customer.
CNAPP Cloud Security
A framework that unifies the protection of cloud-native applications from development through operations.
Command Injection Vulnerabilities
An attack that gets an unintended OS command executed via user input.
Container Image Scanning Vulnerabilities
Examining a container image's OS packages and libraries for known vulnerabilities.
Content Security Policy Web Security
A mechanism (CSP) that restricts where scripts and other resources can load from, to prevent XSS and similar attacks.
Context-Based Access Control Zero Trust
An access-control approach that factors in context, such as location and time.
Continuous Verification Zero Trust
The idea of continually re-verifying the legitimacy of access, rather than stopping after one authentication.
CORS Web Security
A mechanism that controls resource sharing between different origins.
Credential Stuffing Authentication & Authorization
An attack that reuses username/password combinations leaked from other services to attempt unauthorized logins.
CSIRT Incident Response
A specialized team that responds when a security incident occurs.
CSPM Cloud Security
A tool that continuously detects misconfigurations and risk in a cloud environment.
CSRF Vulnerabilities
An attack that tricks a user into sending an unintended request.
CTEM Security Operations
A security operations approach for continuously discovering an organization's attack surface, prioritizing risks, and addressing them on an ongoing basis.
CVE Vulnerabilities
An identifier that assigns a unique number to a publicly disclosed vulnerability.
CVSS Vulnerabilities
A common metric for scoring the severity of a vulnerability numerically.
CWE Vulnerabilities
A common list for classifying and identifying types of vulnerability.
Cyber Kill Chain Security Operations
A model that breaks a cyberattack down into a sequence of seven stages.
Dark Web Monitoring Security Operations
A service that continuously watches for a company's leaked credentials or confidential information being sold or exposed on the dark web.
Data Breach Compliance
Confidential or personal information leaking to the outside.
DDoS Attack Incident Response
An attack that overwhelms a service by concentrating a flood of traffic from many compromised sources.
Deepfake Malware
A technology that uses AI to generate realistic fake video or audio, abused for fraud and impersonation.
Defense in Depth Security Operations
An approach to security that layers multiple defenses rather than relying on a single measure.
Device Authentication Zero Trust
Verifying the trustworthiness of the connecting device itself, not just the user.
Device Posture Zero Trust
The state indicating whether a connecting device meets security requirements.
DevSecOps Security Operations
An approach that integrates development (Dev), security (Sec), and operations (Ops).
Digital Signature Encryption
A mechanism that uses public-key cryptography to prove data's authenticity and its creator.
Directory Traversal Vulnerabilities
An attack that improperly reads files in a directory it shouldn't have access to.
DMZ Firewalls
A buffer zone for public-facing servers, placed between the external and internal networks.
DNS Rebinding Web Security
An attack that switches a DNS resolution result mid-attack to bypass the same-origin policy and make a browser access an internal network.
EDR Malware
A category of security product that detects and responds to suspicious behavior on an endpoint.
Elliptic Curve Cryptography Encryption
A form of public-key cryptography that achieves strong security even with a short key length.
Exploit Vulnerabilities
Attack code or a technique built specifically to take advantage of a vulnerability.
Fileless Malware Malware
Malware that runs in memory instead of being saved to disk as a file.
Firewall Firewalls
A mechanism that monitors traffic and blocks anything not permitted.
Forensics Incident Response
Collecting and analyzing evidentiary data to determine the cause of an incident.
GDPR Compliance
An EU regulation on the protection of personal data.
Golden Ticket Attack Malware
An attack that abuses Active Directory's authentication system to forge a fraudulent ticket granting unlimited access to every resource in the domain.
Hash Function Encryption
A function that produces a fixed-length value from arbitrary data, used for things like tamper detection.
HMAC Encryption
A mechanism that uses a shared key to detect tampering with a message.
Honeypot Security Operations
A deliberately vulnerable system set up to lure attackers and observe their methods.
HSTS Web Security
A mechanism that instructs a browser to always connect over HTTPS.
HTTP Security Headers Web Security
A general term for the various HTTP response headers a web server can add to protect the browser from a range of attacks.
HTTPS Web Security
HTTP communication encrypted with TLS.
IAM Authentication & Authorization
A general term for a system that centrally manages who can access what.
IDS Firewalls
A mechanism that detects and reports signs of malicious traffic.
Incident Response Plan Incident Response
A plan that predefines the steps to take when an incident occurs.
Initialization Vector Encryption
An initial value varied on each encryption to eliminate predictable patterns.
Input Validation Web Security
Processing that checks whether user input matches what's expected.
Insider Threat Incident Response
The risk of data leaks or misconduct from employees or contractors who already hold legitimate access, rather than from an outside attacker.
IOC Incident Response
Evidence indicating that an attack or breach has occurred.
IPS Firewalls
A mechanism that detects malicious traffic and automatically blocks it.
ISO27001 Compliance
An international standard for information security management.
Just-in-Time Access Zero Trust
A mechanism that temporarily grants a permission only when it's actually needed.
JWT Authentication & Authorization
A token format that represents things like authentication information compactly and tamper-evidently.
Kerberos Authentication & Authorization
A protocol that uses tickets to authenticate securely over a network.
Key Stretching Encryption
A technique that repeats hashing to increase the time needed to crack it.
Keylogger Malware
Malware that secretly records what's typed on a keyboard.
Least Privilege Access Zero Trust
The principle of granting only the minimum permission needed, each time.
Living off the Land Security Operations
An attack technique that uses only tools already built into the OS.
Malware Malware
An umbrella term for malicious software created to harm the user.
Man-in-the-Middle Attack Incident Response
An attack where a third party inserts itself between two communicating parties to eavesdrop on or tamper with the traffic.
Microsegmentation Zero Trust
A technique that finely partitions a network to minimize the blast radius of a breach.
MITRE ATT&CK Security Operations
A knowledge base published by MITRE that systematically catalogs attacker tactics and techniques.
MTTD Incident Response
The average time it takes to detect a threat or incident.
MTTR Incident Response
The average time from an outage or incident occurring to recovery.
Multi-Factor Authentication Authentication & Authorization
An authentication method that combines multiple different factors, such as a password, to verify identity.
Next-Generation Firewall Firewalls
A firewall with advanced capabilities, such as identifying traffic at the application level.
NIST Compliance
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology, which develops various security standards and guidelines.
OAuth Authentication & Authorization
An authorization mechanism for delegating permission to another service without sharing a password.
One-Time Password Authentication & Authorization
A single-use, disposable password.
OpenID Connect Authentication & Authorization
A mechanism for verifying identity, built as an extension of OAuth.
OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities
A ranking of the leading vulnerabilities found in web applications.
Packet Filtering Firewalls
A mechanism that decides whether to let a packet through based on its header information.
Passkey Authentication & Authorization
A mechanism for logging in securely via biometrics and the like, without a password.
Pass-the-Hash Attack Authentication & Authorization
An attack that bypasses authentication using a stolen password hash directly, without needing to know the plaintext password.
Password Spraying Authentication & Authorization
An attack that tries a small number of commonly used passwords against a large number of accounts.
Patch Management Vulnerabilities
Systematically applying and managing security fixes.
PCI DSS Compliance
A security standard required of businesses that handle credit card information.
Penetration Testing Vulnerabilities
A test that simulates a real attack to verify whether intrusion is possible.
Perfect Forward Secrecy Encryption
The property that past communication stays undecipherable even if a key later leaks.
Phishing Malware
A fraud technique that tricks victims into handing over credentials via a fake site or similar.
PKI Encryption
The overall infrastructure, including certificate issuance, for operating public-key cryptography securely.
Playbook Incident Response
A document that predefines the response steps to take when an incident occurs.
Port Scan Firewalls
Probing a target device from outside to find which ports are open.
Post-Quantum Cryptography Encryption
A new class of cryptography designed to resist decryption by quantum computers.
Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilities
Improperly gaining a higher privilege than one was granted.
Prompt Injection Vulnerabilities
An attack technique that embeds malicious instructions in input to make an AI behave in unintended ways.
Proxy Firewall Firewalls
A firewall that mediates and inspects traffic content at the application layer.
Public-Key Cryptography Encryption
An encryption scheme that uses different keys (a public key and a private key) for encryption and decryption.
Purple Team Incident Response
An activity where the attacking side (red team) and defending side (blue team) collaborate to improve detection and response capability.
Rainbow Table Attack Authentication & Authorization
An attack that uses a precomputed table mapping hash values back to their original plaintext, to quickly crack a password from its hash.
Ransomware Malware
Malware that encrypts data and demands payment in exchange for restoring it.
Rate Limiting Web Security
A mechanism that caps the number of requests allowed in a given time period.
RBAC Authentication & Authorization
An access-control approach that bundles permissions and assigns them per role.
Red Team Incident Response
A team that plays the role of an attacker to test an organization's defenses.
Refresh Token Authentication & Authorization
A token used to reissue an access token after it expires.
Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities
A vulnerability that lets an attacker execute arbitrary code on a target system.
Risk Assessment Compliance
Identifying anticipated risks and evaluating their impact.
Risk-Based Authentication Authentication & Authorization
A mechanism that requests additional authentication based on the risk of a login attempt.
Rootkit Malware
A set of tools for maintaining unauthorized control of a system while hiding the traces of intrusion.
RSA Encryption
A leading public-key cryptosystem based on the difficulty of factoring.
Salt Encryption
A random value added before hashing a password, as a defense against cracking.
Same-Origin Policy Web Security
A fundamental browser principle that restricts a script from one origin (a combination of domain, port, and protocol) from freely accessing resources on a different origin.
SAML Authentication & Authorization
An XML-based standard for securely exchanging authentication information between organizations.
Sandbox Malware
A mechanism for running a program in an isolated environment to safely observe its behavior.
SASE Zero Trust
An approach that delivers networking and security functions together from the cloud.
SBOM Vulnerabilities
An inventory list of the components (such as libraries) that make up a piece of software.
Secrets Management Cloud Security
A mechanism for securely storing and managing secrets such as API keys and passwords.
Secure Coding Compliance
The practice of writing code with care not to introduce vulnerabilities.
Security Awareness Training Compliance
Education and training conducted to raise awareness across an organization.
Security Policy Compliance
A document laying out an organization's security policy.
Session Hijacking Web Security
An attack that steals someone else's session information to impersonate them.
Session Management Authentication & Authorization
A mechanism for maintaining and managing login state over a period of time.
SHA-256 Encryption
A widely used 256-bit hash function.
Shadow IT Cloud Security
IT services or devices that employees have adopted and use on their own, without the knowledge or approval of the IT department.
Side-Channel Attack Vulnerabilities
An attack technique that infers secret information, such as an encryption key, by observing physical side effects like processing time, power consumption, or electromagnetic emissions.
SIEM Security Operations
A mechanism that aggregates logs from various devices and detects threats through correlation analysis.
Single Sign-On Authentication & Authorization
A mechanism that lets one authentication cover access to multiple services.
SOAR Security Operations
A mechanism that automates security operations from detection through response.
SOC Incident Response
An organization or facility specialized in security monitoring and analysis.
SOC 2 Compliance
An internationally recognized assurance standard for evaluating internal controls around information security.
Social Engineering Malware
An umbrella term for attack techniques that exploit human psychology and assumptions, rather than technical vulnerabilities, to steal information.
Spear Phishing Malware
A targeted phishing attack aimed at a specific individual.
Spoofing Authentication & Authorization
An umbrella term for pretending to be another person or system in order to gain unauthorized access or communication.
Spyware Malware
Software that collects information and sends it out without the user noticing.
SQL Injection Vulnerabilities
An attack that injects malicious SQL to manipulate a database.
SSRF Vulnerabilities
An attack that uses a server as a stepping stone to reach internal resources it shouldn't be able to access.
Stateful Inspection Firewalls
A method that remembers connection state and decides to allow or deny traffic based on context.
Stream Cipher Encryption
An encryption method that continuously encrypts data one bit or byte at a time.
STRIDE Security Operations
A threat modeling method devised by Microsoft that classifies threats into six categories.
Subresource Integrity Web Security
A mechanism that uses a hash value to verify that an externally loaded file, such as JavaScript, has not been tampered with.
Supply Chain Attack Vulnerabilities
An attack carried out through a peripheral route, such as a business partner or a library in use.
Symmetric-Key Cryptography Encryption
An encryption scheme that uses the same key for both encryption and decryption. Fast to process.
Targeted Attack Malware
An attack aimed at a specific organization or individual.
Threat Hunting Security Operations
Proactively searching for signs of a threat instead of waiting for a detection alert.
Threat Intelligence Security Operations
Collected and analyzed information about attackers' methods and trends.
Threat Modeling Security Operations
A technique for identifying likely threats during a system's design phase.
TLS Encryption
The current protocol for encrypting a communication channel, the successor to SSL.
TOTP Authentication & Authorization
A one-time-password scheme where the password changes at fixed intervals based on time.
Triage Incident Response
Assessing the severity of incidents that have occurred and prioritizing them.
Trojan Horse Malware
A malicious program that infiltrates a system disguised as legitimate software.
Typosquatting Incident Response
A technique that registers a lookalike fake domain to catch typos of a well-known domain name.
UTM Firewalls
A security appliance that integrates multiple functions, such as a firewall and IPS, into a single device.
Virus Malware
A type of malware that attaches to other programs and self-replicates.
Vulnerability Vulnerabilities
A security weakness present in a system.
Vulnerability Assessment Vulnerabilities
Investigating a system for weaknesses.
WAF Firewalls
A dedicated firewall for blocking attacks aimed at web applications.
Watering Hole Attack Incident Response
An attack technique that compromises a website a target frequently visits and lies in wait to infect them.
Worm Malware
Malware that spreads on its own over a network, without attaching to another program.
XDR Malware
A mechanism that detects threats by integrating detection data across multiple domains, not just endpoints.
XSS Vulnerabilities
An attack technique that gets a malicious script embedded into a web page.
XXE Vulnerabilities
An attack that abuses XML external entity references to read internal information.
Zero Trust Zero Trust
The idea that even an internal network shouldn't be trusted unconditionally.
Zero-Day Vulnerability Vulnerabilities
A vulnerability exploited before a fix is available.
ZTNA Zero Trust
A mechanism, based on zero trust principles, that individually verifies and authorizes access to internal applications on a per-user, per-device basis.