Top 50 Cybersecurity Acronyms You Should Know

1. DoS (Denial of Service): Service interruption from bugs or vulnerabilities.
    
2. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service): A flood of traffic meant to overload resources and cause them to crash.
    
3. CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures): A database of known vulnerabilities found in various open-market software.
    
4. DNS (Domain Name Service): Is one of the Internet's backbone protocols for translating domain names to IP addresses.
    
5. FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name): This is a friendly domain name for web services linked to an IP address.
    
6. SSH (Secure Shell): An encrypted remote-control protocol for controlling servers and other network equipment.
    
7. RCE (Remote Code Execution): An exploit allowing for execution of malicious code.
    
8. XSS (Cross-Site Scripting): A web vulnerability allowing for the injection of malicious scripts.
    
9. IDS (Intrusion Detection System): Background procedures monitoring an environment for anomalies in network traffic.
    
10.  IPS (Intrusion Prevention System): A system that proactively blocks and contains anomalies in network traffic.
     
11.  JWT (JSON Web Token): Tokens are sent to a web application for authentication and authorization.
     
12.  MitM (Man in the Middle): Interception of a web data transfer to eavesdrop on traffic.
     
13.  MFA (Multifactor Authentication): An added layer of authentication requirements to improve the protection of accounts.
     
14.  EPP (Endpoint Protection Platform): Infrastructure used to protect vulnerable endpoints such as smartphones or laptops.
     
15.  VPN (Virtual Private Network): A tunneling service that adds data encryption between a user endpoint and the internal network.
     
16.  AV (Antivirus): Software running on a server or user device that prevents malicious code from executing on the local machine.
     
17.  SOC (Security Operation Center): An enterprise team with a group of security analysts reviewing and investigating potential cyber-events.
     
18.  ZTNA (Zero-Trust Network Access): Is a methodology for improving security by always validating resource requests for authorized access.
     
19.  C2 (Command and Control): Malware used to remotely control a device and send data back to a central attacker-controlled server.
     
20.  IR (Incident Response): A process to contain, eradicate, and investigate a cyber-incident.
     
21.  TI (Threat Intelligence): The collection of information from various darknet locations and cleanest sources to better understand zero-day threats and the cybersecurity landscape.
     
22.  INFOSEC (Information Security): A general term for information security.
     
23.  IPSec (IP Security): A set of rules created to define how security and encryption perform over an IP network.
     
24.  NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology): A US institute that creates best practices and methodologies for better data security.
     
25.  OPSEC (Operational Security): A general term used to refer to strategies for operational security.
     
26.  CISO (Chief Information Security Officer): Enterprise employee overseeing cybersecurity and data protection.
     
27.  Pen-Test (Penetration Testing): Finding corporate software and hardware vulnerabilities.
     
28.  SAST (Static Application Security Testing): Whitebox detection of finding vulnerabilities, usually done as developers create their code.
     
29.  DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing): Blackbox testing deployed applications using scripts and methods like attackers.
     
30.  RFI (Remote File Inclusion): An exploit to add a malicious file for execution against a remote site.
     
31.  LFI (Local File Inclusion): An exploit in web applications to access sensitive files remotely.
     
32.  VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network): Virtual networks running on physical switches that could be misconfigured to allow unauthorized access.
     
33.  0D (Zero-Day): A vulnerability or exploit unseen in the wild and often used to bypass security scanners.
     
34.  CI (Command Injection): Exploits such as SQL injection or LDAP injection are used to inject malicious commands into a server or application.
     
35.  LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol): A protocol to authenticate users to a directory of resources shared in a heterogeneous environment.
     
36.  NAT (Network Address Translation): Is a translation tool for turning private, unrouteable IP addresses into public addresses.
     
37.  CTF (Capture the Flag): A game played by hackers to improve their skills and compete with other experienced hackers.
     
38.  ACL (Access Control List): A list of rules to disallow or allow specific protocols or ports often used on a router.
     
39.  RAT (Remote Access Trojan): Malware installed on a targeted system allows an attacker to control or exfiltrate data.
     
40.  APT (Advanced Persistent Threat): Malware or exploits that can often bypass common security controls with backdoors to avoid complete eradication.
     
41.  RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol): A Microsoft Windows protocol that remotely controls a Windows-based server or desktop.
     
42.  HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure): Is a secure way to transfer data between two devices using the HTTP protocol.
     
43.  CSP (Content Security Policy): Server headers limit executable code from loading on pages such as JavaScript or CSS.
     
44.  DLP (Data Loss Prevention): Methodologies and best practices for preventing data loss from cyber-risks and vulnerabilities.
     
45.  DRAAS (Disaster Recovery as a Service): Cloud-based services used to protect data from loss after downtime and application failure.
     
46.  SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, and Security): An institution for training cybersecurity professionals and guiding best practices and policies.
     
47.  SSID (Service Set Identifier): An identification value broadcasted by Wi-Fi routers to offer user connections.
     
48.  PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program): Unwanted software is usually downloaded to a local device but causes malicious behavior, such as adware or spyware.
     
49.  DMARC (Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): A set of rules and methods to validate email senders and stop spam.
     
50.  SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Is an email authentication protocol that helps prevent email spoofing, a common tactic in phishing and spam. SPF allows receiving mail servers to verify if incoming emails are sent from a domain authorized by that domain's administrator.

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