Cyber Security Glossary

Find definitions for IT security and compliance in our online glossary of key terms, acronyms, and vocabulary.

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  • Term
    Definition
  • A top most e-mail message store is the location in which an e-mail system stores its data. For instance, an Outlook PST (personal storage folder) is a type of top most file that is created when a user’s Microsoft Outlook mail account is set up. Additional Outlook PST files for that user can(...)
  • "An attack in which an attacker listens passively to the authentication protocol to capture information that can be used in a subsequent active attack to masquerade as the claimant."
  • "a problem or situation, especially in computer programming, that only happens at the highest or lowest end of a range of possible values or in extreme situations:"
  • Definition: In the NICE Framework, cybersecurity work where a person: Conducts training of personnel within pertinent subject domain; develop, plan, coordinate, deliver, and/or evaluate training courses, methods, and techniques as appropriate.
  • "The concept of effective challenge is used to improve AI implementation at large financial services organizations in the US. An interpretation of an effective challenge is that, when building AI systems, one of the best ways to guarantee good results is to actively challenge and review each(...)
  • The discovery of electronic documents and data including e-mail, Web pages, word processing files, computer databases, and virtually anything that is stored on a computer. Technically, documents and data are “electronic” if they exist in a medium that can only be read through the use of(...)
  • Commonly referred to as “e-mail”, an electronic mail message is a document created or received via an electronic mail system, including brief notes, formal or substantive narrative documents, and any attachments, such as word processing and other electronic documents, which may be transmitted(...)
  • Information recorded in a form that requires a computer or other machine to process it and that otherwise satisfies the definition of a record. 
  • Definition: Any mark in electronic form associated with an electronic document, applied with the intent to sign the document.Related Term(s): digital signature
  • "An embedding is a representation of a topological object, manifold, graph, field, etc. in a certain space in such a way that its connectivity or algebraic properties are preserved. For example, a field embedding preserves the algebraic structure of plus and times, an embedding of a(...)
  • ""
  • "The use of a data processing system to imitate another data processing system, so that the imitating system accepts the same data, executes the same programs, and achieves the same results as the imitated system."
  • Definition: To convert plaintext to ciphertext by means of a cryptographic system.Synonym(s): encode, encrypt
  • Definition: To convert plaintext to ciphertext by means of a code.Synonym(s): encipher, encrypt
  • Definition: The generic term encompassing encipher and encode.Synonym(s): encipher, encode
  • Definition: The process of transforming plaintext into ciphertext. Converting data into a form that cannot be easily understood by unauthorized people.Synonym(s): encode, encrypt, encipher
  • A procedure that renders the contents of a message or file unintelligible to anyone not authorized to read it.
  • "An activity, task, or output that describes or defines the conclusion of a process."
  • "n. 3a: a designer or builder of engines; b: a person who is trained in or follows as a profession a branch of engineering; c: a person who carries through an enterprise by skillful or artful contrivance; 4: a person who runs or supervises an engine or an apparatus. v. 1: to lay out,(...)
  • "a machine learning paradigm where multiple models (often called “weak learners”) are trained to solve the same problem and combined to get better results. The main hypothesis is that when weak models are correctly combined we can obtain more accurate and/or robust models."
  • Definition: A comprehensive approach to risk management that engages people, processes, and systems across an organization to improve the quality of decision making for managing risks that may hinder an organization’s ability to achieve its objectives.Related Term(s): risk management,(...)
  • "Anything affecting a subject system or affected by a subject system through interactions with it, or anything sharing an interpretation of interactions with a subject system"
  • "(Equalized odds). We say that a predictor bY satisfies equalized odds with respect to protected attribute A and outcome Y, if bY and A are independent conditional on Y."
  • "(Equal opportunity). We say that a binary predictor bY satisfies equal opportunity with respect to A and Y if Pr{bY = 1 | A = 0; Y = 1} = Pr{bY = 1 | A = 1; Y = 1}."
  • "The difference between the observed value of an index and its “true” value. Errors maybe random or systematic. Random errors are generally referred to as “errors”. Systematic errors are called “biases”."