Glossary

Security strength is a measure of the computational complexity associated with recovering certain secret and/or security-critical information concerning a given cryptographic algorithm from known data (e.g. plaintext/ciphertext pairs for a given encryption algorithm).  It is also a number associated with the amount of work (that is, the number of operations) that is required to break a cryptographic algorithm or system.  Sometimes referred to as a security level.

Session hijacking is also known as cookie hijacking. It is an exploitation of a valid computer session, sometimes also called a session key, to gain unauthorised access to sensitive information or services in a computer system or network.

See also: Session Hijacking

 

A session key is a key that is temporary or is used for a relatively short period of time. It is an encryption and decryption key that is randomly generated to ensure the security of a communications session between a user and another computer or between two computers. These keys are sometimes called symmetric keys, because the same key is used for both encryption and decryption.

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet-standard protocol for managing devices on IP networks. Devices that typically support SNMP include routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, modem racks and more. SNMP is widely used in network management systems to monitor network-attached devices for conditions that warrant administrative attention.

TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. It is a basic communication language or protocol of the Internet and can be used as a communications protocol in a private network as well (either an intranet or an extranet).

Telnet is a TCP-based, application-layer, Internet Standard protocol and an essential TCP/IP protocol for accessing remote computers. Through Telnet, an administrator or another user can access someone else’s computer remotely.

Threat Assessment is a structured process used to identify and evaluate various risks or threats that an organization might be exposed to.

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a set of rules or protocol that is used along with the Internet Protocol to send data in the form of message units between computers over the Internet. Whereas the IP protocol deals only with packets, TCP enables two hosts to establish a connection and exchange streams of data. TCP takes care of keeping track of the individual units of data called packets. TCP guarantees delivery of data and also guarantees that packets will be delivered in the same order in which they were sent. It originated in the initial network implementation in which it complemented the Internet Protocol (IP). Therefore, the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP.

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a protocol that ensures privacy between communicating applications and the users on the Internet. When a server and client communicate, TLS ensures that no third party may overhear or tamper with any message. TLS is the successor to the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

A Trojan Horse is a computer program that appears to have a useful function, but also has a hidden and potentially malicious function that evades security mechanisms, sometimes by exploiting legitimate authorization of a system entity that invokes the program.

See also: Trojan Horse

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. The first part of the address indicates what protocol to use, and the second part specifies the IP address or the domain name where the resource is located. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), although many people use the two terms interchangeably. A URL implies the means to access an indicated resource, which is not true of every URI. URLs occur most commonly to reference web pages (http), but are also used for file transfer (ftp), email (mailto), database access (JDBC), and many other applications.

A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a string of characters that are used to identify the name of a resource. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network (such as the World Wide Web) using specific protocols. In other word, URI is the generic term for all types of names and addresses that refer to objects on the World Wide Web.

A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network, such as the Internet. VPN enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. A VPN is created by establishing a virtual point-to-point connection through the use of dedicated connections, virtual tunneling protocols, or traffic encryption. For example, if a corporation has LANs at several different sites, each connected to the Internet by a firewall, the corporation could create a VPN by (a) using encrypted tunnels to connect from firewall to firewall across the Internet and (b) not allowing any other traffic through the firewalls. A VPN is generally less expensive to build and operate than a dedicated real network, because the virtual network shares the cost of system resources with other users of the real network.

A Voice Intrusion Prevention System (VIPS) is a security management system for voice networks that monitors voice traffic for multiple calling patterns or attack/abuse signatures to proactively detect and prevent toll fraud, denial of service, telecom attacks, service abuse, and other anomalous activities.

War chalking is marking areas, usually on sidewalks with chalk, that receive wireless signals to advertise an open Wi-Fi network. War chalking was inspired by hobo symbols and were conceived by a group of friends in June 2002. They were publicised by Matt Jones who designed the set of icons and produced a downloadable document containing them.

See also: War Chalking

 

A WHOIS is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system. The protocol stores and delivers database content in a human-readable format.

The World Wide Web (WWW) is the global, hypermedia-based collection of information and services that is available on Internet servers and is accessed by browsers using Hypertext Transfer Protocol and other information retrieval mechanisms.

A worm is a computer program that can run independently, can propagate a complete working version of itself onto other hosts on a network, and may consume computer resources destructively.

See also: Worm

Yottabyte is abbreviated as YB. A yottabyte is equal to 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 (280) bits, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1024) bytes and is the largest recognized value used with storage.

The Zero Day or Day Zero is the day a new vulnerability is made known. In some cases, a zero day exploit is referred to an exploit for which no patch is available yet. Day one is a day at which the patch is made available.

See also: Zero Day