B
- Backup (3-2-1 rule)
- A backup strategy calling for 3 copies of your data, on 2 different types of media, with 1 copy offsite or offline so a network-wide incident can't destroy every copy at once.
- Brute Force Attack
- An attack that guesses passwords through sheer repetition rather than trickery. Long, unique passwords and MFA make this impractical.
- Business Email Compromise (BEC)
- A scam where an attacker impersonates an executive or vendor by email, usually to redirect a payment or wire transfer.
C
- Credential Stuffing
- Attackers try passwords stolen from one breached website against your other accounts, betting you reused the password.
- Cyber Insurance
- Insurance that can cover costs from a cyberattack, such as incident response, legal fees, and business interruption — policies vary widely on what's excluded.
D
- Dark Web Monitoring
- A service that watches criminal marketplaces and forums for your company's stolen credentials or data.
- DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service)
- An attack that floods a website or service with traffic to knock it offline, rather than to steal data.
E
- EDR (Endpoint Detection & Response)
- Security software that watches for suspicious behavior on a device in real time, rather than just matching known malware signatures like traditional antivirus.
- Encryption
- Scrambling data so it's unreadable without a key — both 'at rest' (stored) and 'in transit' (being sent) matter.
F
- Firewall
- A system that filters network traffic, blocking connections that don't meet defined rules.
I
- Immutable Backup
- A backup that can't be altered or deleted for a set period, even by someone with admin access — a strong defense against ransomware that targets backups.
- Incident Response Plan (IRP)
- A written plan for what to do in the first hours and days of a security incident, including who to call and in what order.
L
- Least Privilege
- Giving each person access to only the systems and data their job actually requires, nothing more.
M
- Malware
- Any malicious software, including viruses, ransomware, spyware, and trojans.
- Man-in-the-Middle Attack
- An attacker secretly intercepts communication between two parties, often over unsecured Wi-Fi.
- MFA / 2FA (Multi-Factor Authentication)
- Requiring a second proof of identity beyond a password, such as a code from an app — one of the single most effective defenses available.
N
- NIST CSF (Cybersecurity Framework)
- A free, voluntary framework from the National Institute of Standards and Technology organizing security into six functions: Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover.
P
- Patch Management
- The process of applying software and operating system updates on a regular schedule to close known vulnerabilities.
- Penetration Test
- An authorized, simulated attack against your systems to find exploitable weaknesses before a real attacker does.
- Phishing
- A fraudulent email, text, or message designed to trick someone into clicking a malicious link, opening an attachment, or handing over credentials.
- PII / Sensitive Personal Information
- Data that can identify a specific person, such as a name combined with a Social Security number, driver's license number, or financial account details.
Q
- Quishing
- Phishing carried out through a malicious QR code.
R
- Ransomware
- Malware that encrypts your files and demands payment for the decryption key, often paired with a threat to leak stolen data.
- RTO / RPO (Recovery Time / Point Objective)
- RTO is how long you can tolerate being down; RPO is how much data loss (measured in time) you can tolerate. Both should drive your backup strategy.
S
- Safe Harbor Law
- A law that offers legal protection, such as an affirmative defense against certain damages, to businesses that follow a recognized cybersecurity framework.
- Shadow IT
- Software, devices, or cloud services used by employees without IT's knowledge or approval — a common source of unmanaged risk.
- SIEM (Security Information & Event Management)
- A system that collects and analyzes security logs from across an organization to spot suspicious activity.
- Smishing
- Phishing carried out over SMS text message.
- SOC (Security Operations Center)
- A team (in-house or outsourced) that monitors for and responds to security threats around the clock.
- Social Engineering
- Manipulating a person, rather than a system, into taking an action that compromises security — the technique behind most phishing, vishing, and BEC attacks.
- Spear Phishing
- A phishing attempt tailored to a specific individual or organization using researched, personal details, making it more convincing.
- Supply Chain Attack
- An attack that compromises you indirectly, through a vendor, software update, or contractor with access to your systems.
V
- Vishing
- Phishing carried out over a phone call, increasingly using AI-cloned voices to impersonate real people.
- VPN (Virtual Private Network)
- An encrypted connection that protects data traveling between a device and a network, often used for secure remote access.
- Vulnerability Scan
- An automated check of your systems for known, unpatched security weaknesses.
Z
- Zero Trust
- A security model that verifies every user and device continuously, rather than automatically trusting anything already inside the network.
- Zero-Day
- A vulnerability that's being exploited before the software vendor has released a fix for it.
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