Cyber Security Glossary

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

AJAX progress indicator
All categories All categories
  • Term
    Definition
  • Where the operating system stores information about a disk's structure. The FAT is a road map, which allows a computer to save information on the disk, locate and retrieve it. Different operating systems have more or less sophisticated FAT 4 capabilities and therefore are more or less(...)
  • A tag of three or four letters, preceded by a period, which identifies a data file's format or the application used to create the file. File extensions can streamline the process of locating data. For example, if one is looking for incriminating pictures stored on a computer, one might begin(...)
  • When several or many computers are networked together in a LAN situation, one computer may be utilized as a storage location for files for the group. File servers may be employed to store e-mail, financial data, word processing information or to back-up the network.
  • One of the key benefits of a network is the ability to share files stored on the server among several users.
  • Groups of information collectively placed under a name and stored on the computer. Files are organized in various directories and subdirectories. 
  • Definition: A hardware/software device or a software program that limits network traffic according to a set of rules of what access is and is not allowed or authorized.
  • A set of related programs that protect the resources of a private network from users from other networks.
  • "Computer programs and data stored in hardware - typically in read-only memory (ROM) or programmable read-only memory (PROM) - such that the programs and data cannot be dynamically written or modified during execution of the programs."
  • "Fitting is the process of verifying whether the data item value is in the previously specified interval."
  • Once the standard and now an increasingly rare storage medium consisting of a thin magnetic film disk housed in a protective sleeve. 
  • "Estimate or prediction of conditions and events in the project's future based on information and knowledge available at the time of the forecast. The information is based on the project's past performance and expected future performance, and includes information that could impact the project(...)
  • The internal structure of a file, which defines the way it is stored and used. Specific applications may define unique formats for their data (i.e., “MS Word document file format”). Many files may only be viewed or printed using their originating application or an application designed to work(...)
  • "a rule of thumb under which [federal enforcement agencies] will generally consider a selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than four-fifths (4/5ths) or eighty percent (80%) of the selection rate for the group with the highest selection rate as a substantially(...)
  • Fragmented data is live data that has been broken up and stored in various locations on a single hard drive or disk.
  • "Monitoring the behavior of populations of users in order to estimate, detect, or avoid undesirable behavior."
  • An Internet protocol that enables you to transfer files between computers on the Internet. 
  • "Accomplishes its assigned mission, within a defined scope, without human intervention while adapting to operational and environmental conditions"
  • "Generative Adversarial Networks, or GANs for short, are an approach to generative modeling using deep learning methods, such as convolutional neural networks. Generative modeling is an unsupervised learning task in machine learning that involves automatically discovering and learning the(...)
  • "[a kind of artificial intelligence] capable of generating new content such as code, images, music, text, simulations, 3D objects, videos, and so on. It is considered an important part of AI research and development, as it has the potential to revolutionize many industries, including(...)
  • A computer compression format for pictures. 
  • A gigabyte is a measure of computer data storage capacity and is a billion (1,000,000,000) bytes.
  • "[An approach that] [t]ries to understand the model as a whole."
  • "The actions to ensure stakeholder needs, conditions, and options are evaluated to determine balanced, agreed-upon enterprise objectives; setting direction through prioritization and decision-making; and monitoring performance and ompliance against agreed-upon directions and objectives. AI(...)
  • "Diagram that represents the variation of a variable in comparison with that of one or more other variables. Diagram or other representation consisting of a finite set of nodes and internode connections called edges or arcs."
  • "A specialized chip capable of highly parallel processing. GPUs are well-suited for running machine learning and deep learning algorithms. GPUs were first developed for efficient parallel processing of arrays of values used in computer graphics. Modern-day GPUs are designed to be optimized for(...)