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Glossary of Information Security Terms
Here are some of the common terms used in the information security and privacy fields that are helpful for understanding information protection.
Attacks - An attack is when a threat (usually a person) generates a specific action against you for malicious intent. An example of a physical attack is someone trying to steal your purse or wallet. An information attack would be when sometime tries to steal your username and password.
Botnet - A "botnet" is a term used to refer to a network of computers that can be remotely controlled by another computer, usually for malicious intent by a criminal.
Cybercrime - A generic term used for crimes committed via the internet or other computer systems. Usually these crimes involve stolen information, such as corporate secrets, credit cards or personal information. Cyber criminals can steal money by having it electronically transferred to stolen or real accounts.
Data Classification - The system and process of assessing how important or sensitive a given type of data is to the organization. Most organizations use a three or four-category system.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack - This is when a network of computers are used to bombard another computer with large amounts of useless traffic. These attacks overwhelm the server, making it unable to provide regular business services. Many users are unwitting accomplices in these attacks after their PC gets infected with Spyware. These hijacked computers are known as "zombies."
Hoax - An email scam that tries to prompt a user to take action based on bogus or inaccurate information. A warning about a fictitious computer virus spreading around the world, with the request to "forward this email to all of your friends" is a classic email hoax.
Incident - An incident happens when an attack is successful. An example would be when your username and password is stolen.
Information Security - This is the practice of protecting information from potential or actual loss. We use information security techniques to protect corporate and personal data.
Losses - Losses or damages are the result of a particular incident or crime. There are many different types of damage, both physical and financial. For example, an email may cause your computer to be infected with a virus. The virus could ultimately leave your system unstable to the point where you would have to send it in for repairs. In this case, the losses are in time, information and money.
Malicious code - Malicious code is computer code that was created to do harm. Computer viruses, worms, Trojans, keyloggers, screenscrapers, and other code with the purpose of modifying files in harmful ways, filling all your computer memory or storage, or secretly copying and sending to other your files and keystrokes are all considered malicious code. Malicious code is often also called "malware."
Malware - The generic term used for any type of software that is malicious in nature. Viruses, "worms", "back-doors", "trojan-horses" and "spyware" are all forms of malware.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) - P2P technology allows two computers on a network, typically called nodes, to communicate directly with each other without going through a centralized server. This is how malicious code and files can so easily be spread via P2P; they avoid going through the server that does the scan for the malicious code.
Personally identifiable information (PII) - This is any information that could be tied to a specific individual. Many different laws have many different definitions for what is considered as PII; at least 50 specific types of items are specifically named in laws throughout the world!
Privacy - Privacy is the practice of protecting our personal information, or those of our customers, from being given away, either by accident or from direct theft, to parties not authorized to view this information.
Protective Measures (or "controls") - These are the action items, or the steps organizations will take to protect information. In the information security field, these are sometime called "controls." Corporate security policies are a form of control.
Response - This is the practice of responding once an incident has occurred. For the purposes of this book, an "incident" will be any event that compromises the security of the organization.
Risk Assessment - This is the process of listing the various ways that information can be lost, determining the chances that one or more of these might happen to an organization, and then deciding on appropriate actions or controls to lower the risk.
Social Engineering - Social Engineering is the term used when attackers try to extract valuable information from individuals by either impersonation of a trusted organization or person, or by misleading the individual on how the information will be used.
Social engineering is often done on the Internet to commit fraud or gain access to the targeted victim's computer or data.
Spyware - Spyware is the general term for a class of programs that transmit data secretly, usually from a user's infected personal computer, to another computer. Criminals use spyware to transmit web site addresses, credit cards, keystroke logs, and many other types of information.
Threats - A threat is any person or event that may generate an attack against you. Threats can be either accidental or intentional. A person who tries to steal your wallet has an intentional threat. A fire that destroys your building and burns up your computer is an accidental threat.
Virus - A special kind of computer code that can replicate itself onto other computers using any number of methods. Viruses can infect personal computers, laptops, servers, Personal Digital Assistants, and cell phones.
Zombie - A computer that get "hijacked," or taken over by another third party, usually through software such as a virus or Trojan horse. The zombie computers then respond to commands from a central computer, run by criminals, to send SPAM, transmit files, or any number of other malicious activities.