Cybersecurity glossary

Identity

The rules and technologies that decide who can use which systems and data, and what they are allowed to do with them.

Infrastructure

Microsoft’s directory service for managing users, computers and permissions in Windows networks. Attackers target it because controlling it often means controlling the whole network.

Applications

Protecting application programming interfaces from misuse, such as reading other users’ data, bypassing authorisation or overwhelming the service.

Threats

All the points where an attacker could try to get in, including websites, APIs, cloud services, remote access and people.

Identity

Confirming that a user or system is who it claims to be, for example with a password, a security key or a one-time code.

Resilience

Planning that keeps critical business activities running during and after a disruption, such as a cyber attack, an outage or a natural event.

Threats

Fraud in which attackers take over or impersonate a business email account to trick people into sending money or sensitive information.

Resilience

An assessment of how disruption to each business process would affect the organisation over time, used to set recovery priorities and targets.

Standards

Consensus-based secure configuration guidelines from the Center for Internet Security for operating systems, cloud platforms and applications.

Standards

A prioritised set of security safeguards from the Center for Internet Security that helps organisations defend against the most common attacks.

Cloud

Continuously checking cloud environments for misconfigurations and risky settings against security best practice.

Cloud

Protecting container images, registries, runtimes and orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes throughout their lifecycle.

Vulnerabilities

A public catalogue that gives each publicly known vulnerability a unique identifier, in the format CVE, year and number.

Vulnerabilities

An open standard for rating the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10.

Strategy

Using several layers of security controls, so that if one fails, others still protect the organisation.

Cloud

Building security checks into the software development and release pipeline, rather than adding them at the end.

Resilience

The plans and technology used to restore systems and data after a major incident or outage.

Email

An email authentication standard that works with SPF and DKIM to help stop attackers sending email that pretends to come from your domain.

Privacy

India’s law on how organisations collect and process digital personal data, setting duties for data fiduciaries and rights for individuals.

Data

Converting data into a form that can only be read with the right key, protecting it in storage and in transit.

Infrastructure

Security software on laptops and servers that detects suspicious activity and helps teams investigate and respond.

Vulnerabilities

Code or a technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability to make a system do something it should not.

Vulnerabilities

A security alert or scan finding that looks like a problem but is not a real risk. Validating findings keeps them out of reports.

Network

A system that controls which network traffic is allowed in and out, based on defined rules.

Compliance

A comparison of your current security controls against a framework or standard, showing what is missing and what to fix first.

Privacy

The European Union’s data protection law, which sets rules for processing the personal data of people in the EU.

Infrastructure

Reducing the attack surface of a system by removing what it does not need and applying secure configuration settings.

Identity

The processes and tools that manage digital identities and control their access to systems and data.

Resilience

The structured process of detecting, containing, investigating and recovering from a security incident.

Standards

The international standard for information security management systems. Organisations can be certified against it by accredited certification bodies.

Vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities with evidence that attackers are actively exploiting them, which makes them a top priority to fix.

Cloud

An open-source platform for running and managing containerised applications at scale.

Threats

Techniques attackers use to move from one compromised system to others inside a network.

Identity

Giving users and systems only the access they need to do their job, and nothing more.

Threats

Malicious software, such as viruses, ransomware or spyware, designed to damage systems or steal data.

Cloud

An insecure setting in a system or cloud service, such as publicly accessible storage or overly broad permissions.

Identity

Signing in with two or more different types of proof, such as a password and a code from an app on your phone.

Network

Dividing a network into separate zones so that a compromise in one area cannot easily spread to others.

Standards

A widely used framework from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology that organises security into six functions: Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover.

Industrial

Hardware and software that monitor and control physical equipment and processes, such as in factories and utilities.

Applications

A regularly updated list of the most critical security risks to web applications, published by the OWASP Foundation.

Vulnerabilities

The process of finding, testing and applying software updates that fix security vulnerabilities.

Standards

The security standard for organisations that store, process or transmit payment card data.

Testing

An authorised, simulated attack in which experts safely try to exploit weaknesses to show what a real attacker could achieve.

Threats

Deceptive messages that trick people into revealing information, clicking malicious links or opening harmful attachments.

Identity

Administrative or high-level access that can change systems or reach sensitive data, and therefore needs extra protection.

Threats

Malware that encrypts or steals data and demands payment to restore access or to stop the data being published.

Testing

A goal-based exercise that simulates a determined attacker over a longer period to test how well an organisation detects and responds.

Vulnerabilities

Fixing a vulnerability or weakness, for example by patching, changing a configuration or removing access.

Testing

Testing a fixed vulnerability again to confirm that the fix works.

Compliance

A record of identified risks with their likelihood, impact, owner and treatment plan.

Resilience

RTO is how long a service can be down before the impact becomes unacceptable. RPO is how much data, measured in time, you can afford to lose.

Applications

A list of the components and dependencies that make up a piece of software, used to track vulnerabilities in the software supply chain.

Cloud

The split of security duties between a cloud provider, which secures the underlying cloud, and the customer, who secures what they build and configure on it.

Standards

An attestation report, issued by an independent auditor, on how a service organisation’s controls meet the AICPA Trust Services Criteria.

Threats

Manipulating people into breaking security practices, for example through phishing, phone calls or impersonation.

Threats

An attack that reaches a target through a trusted supplier, such as a software vendor, a service provider or an open-source package.

Compliance

The security risk that comes from suppliers, partners and service providers who can access your systems or data.

Strategy

A structured way to work out how a system could be attacked and which protections matter most, ideally during design.

Testing

A combined service that finds and ranks vulnerabilities, then safely exploits them to prove real-world risk.

Strategy

An experienced security leader who provides CISO-level leadership on a part-time or flexible basis.

Vulnerabilities

A weakness in software, hardware, configuration or process that could be used to compromise security.

Testing

A systematic review that finds and ranks known vulnerabilities across systems, usually combining automated scanning with expert validation.

Strategy

A security approach that never trusts a user or device by default, and checks every access request based on identity, device and context.

Vulnerabilities

A vulnerability that attackers exploit before the vendor has released a fix.