Cybersecurity Glossary

A summary of the most abbreviations I encountered so far. Feel free to contribute via Pull request.

Abbreviation	Meaning
3LOD	Three Lines of Defense
A	Availability
AAA	Authentication, Authorization, Accounting
ACE	Access Control Entry
ACLE	Account Life Cycle Events
ACL	Access Control List
ACME	Automated Certificate Management Environment
ACPI	Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
AC	Attack Complexity
AD DS	Active Directory Domain Service
AEP	ATT&CK Emulation Plans
AES	Advanced Encryption Standard
AH	Authentication Header
AitM	Adversary in the Middle
AMQP	Advanced Message Query Protocol
AMSI	Antimalware Scan Interface
ANSI	American National Standards Institute
APIPA	Automatic Pricate IP Addressing
API	Application Programming Interface
APT	Advanced Packaging Tool
APT	Advanced Persistent Threat
ARP	Address Resolution Protocol
ASLR	Address Space Layout Randomization
ASM	Attack Surface Management
ASPX	Active Server Page Extended
ASR	Attack Surface Reduction
ASVS	Application Security Verification Standard
ATM	Asynchronous Transfer Mode
ATT&CK	Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge
ATT	App Tracking Transparency
AuthPF	Authentication Packet Filter
AV	Antivirus
AV	Attack Vector
AWL	App White Listing
AXFR	DNS Zone Transfer / DNS Query Type
AXS	API Cross-Site Scripting
BEC	Business Email Compromise
BFLA	Broken Function Level Authorization
BFP	Berkeley Packet Filter
BGP	Border Gateway Protocol
BIOC	Behavioral Indicator of Compromise
BITS	Background Intelligence Transfer Service
BLOB	Binary Large Object
BOLA	Broken Object Level Authorization
BSS	Base Service Set
BYOL	Bring Your Own Land
BYOVD	Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver
C2	Command and Control
C3	Custom Command and Control
C4	Customizable Command and Control Center
CAM	Content Addressable Memory
CAPTCHA	Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans appart
CAR	Cyber Analytics Repository
CASB	Cloud Access Security Broker
CBC-MAC	Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code
CBC	cypher Block Chaining
CBSP	Cloud-Based Security Provider
ccTLD	Country Code Top-Level Domain
CDC	Cyber Defense Center
CDN	Content Delivery Network
CDP	Certificate Distribution Point
CEH	Certified Ethical Hacker
CERT	Computer Emergency Response Team
CFG	Control Flow Guard
CFP	Call for Papers
CHAP	Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol
CIA	Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability
CI/CD	Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery
CIFS	Common Internet File System
CLM	Constrained Language Mode
CL	Content-Length
CMMI	Mellon Capability Maturity Model
CNCF	Cloud Native Computing Foundation
CN	Change Notice
COFF	Common Object File Format
COLO	Co-Location
COM	Component Object Model
CONOPS	Concept of Operations
CORS	Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
CPRS	Cross Origin Resource Sharing
CRC	Code Ready Containers
CRI	Container Runtime Interface
CRL	Certificate Revokation List
CRLF	Carriage Return Line Feed
CRUD	Create, Read, Update, Delete
CSAF	Common Security Advisory Framework
CSD	Client-Side Desync
CSIRT	Computer Security Incident Response Team
CSMA/CD	Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection
CSPM	Cloud Security Posture Management
CSPT	Client-Side Path Traversal
CSP	Content Security Policy
CSRF	Client-Side Request Forgery
CSRSS	Client Server Runtime Process
CTAP	Client to Authenticator Protocol
CTA	Czberroam Transparent Authentication
CTEM	Continuous Threat Exposure Management
CTI	Cyber Threat Intelligence
CU	Content Update
CVE	Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures
CVRF	Common Vulnerability Reporting Framework
CVSS	Common Vulnerability Scoring System
CWE	Common Weakness Enumeration
C	Confidentiality
D3FEND	Detection, Denial, and Disruption Framework Empowering Network Defense
DAAS	Data, Assets, Applications and Services
DACL	Discretionary Access Control List
DAC	Discretionary Access Control
DAD	Destruction, Alteration, Disclosure
DAPP	Decentralized Applications
DCIM	Data Center Infrasctructure Management
DCOM	Distributed Component Object Model
DDNS / DynDNS	Dynamic Domain Name System
DDoS	Distributed Denial of Service
DEFI	Decentralized Finance
DEG	Defender Exploit Guard
DEP	Data Execution Prevention
DES	Data Encryption Standard
DFD	Data Flow Diagram
DFIR	Digital Forensics Incident Response
DHCP	Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DIG	Domain Information Groper
DI	Dependency Injection
DKIM	DomainKeys Identified Mail
DLP	Data Loss Prevention
DLR	Dynamic Language Runtime
DMARC	Domain-Based Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance
DMZ	Demilitarized Zone
DNF	Dandified YUM
DNSBL	Domain Name System-Based Blackhole List
DNSCAA	DNS Certification Authority Authorization
DNSSEC	Domain Name System Security Extensions
DNS	Domain Name System
DOCSIS	Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification
DOH	DNS over HTTPS
DOM	Document Object Model
DOT	DNS over TLS
DPAPI	Data Protection Application Programming Interface
DRDoS	DNS Reflection Denial of Service
DREAD	Damage, Reproducibility, Exploitability, Affected Users, Discoverability
DRSAPI	Directory Replication Service Remote Protocol
DRS	Directory Replication Service
DSA	Digital Signature Algorithm
DSCP	Differntiated Services Code Point
DSP	Digital Signal Procesor
DTD	Document Type Definition
DTMF	Dual Tome Multi Frequency
E2EE	End-to-End Email Encryption
EAP-AKA'	EAP Authentication and Key Agreement Prime
EAP-AKA	EAP Authentication and Key Agreement
EAP-EKE	EAP Encrypted Key Exchange
EAP-FAST	EAP Flexble Authentication via Secure Tunneling
EAP-GTC	EAP Generic Token Card
EAP-IKEv2	EAP Internet Key Exchange v2
EAP-NOOB	EAP Nimble Out-of-Band Authentication
EAP-POTP	EAP Protected One-Time Password
EAP-PSK	EAP Pre-Shared Key
EAP-SIM	EAP Subscriber Identity Module
EAP-TLS	EAP Transport Layer Security
EAP-TTLS	EAP Tunneled Transport Layer Security
EAP	Extensible Authentication Protocol
EAR	Execution After Redirect
eBGP	External Border Gateway Protocol
EBP	Extended Base Pointer
ECC	Elliptic Curve Cryptography
ECDH	Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellmann
ECDSA	Elliptic Curve Digitial Signature Algorithm
eCPPTv2	eLearnSecurity Certified Professional Penetration Tester
ECP	Encryption Control Protocol
EDR	Endpoint Detection and Response
EDTR	Endpoint Detection and Threat Response
EIGRP	Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
EIP	Extended Instruction Pointer
eJPT	eLearnSecurity Junior Penetration Tester
ELF	Executable and Linkable Format
ELK	Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana
EM	Exposure Management
ESAE	Enhanced Security Administrative Environment
ESI	Edge Side Includes
ESP	Encapsulating Security Payload
ESP	Extended Stack Pointer
ETW	Event Tracing for Windows
FAANG	Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google
FAST	Flexible Authentication Secure Tunneling
FDE	Full Disk Encryption
FIB	Forward Information Base
FIDO	Fast Identity Online
FIFO	First In, First Out
FIM	File Integrity Monitoring
FinTS	Financial Transaction Services
FIPS	Federal Information Processing Standards
FLoC	Federated Learning of Cohorts
FOSS	Free and Open Source Software
FPM	FastCGI Process Manager
FTTB	Fiber to the Building
FTTC/K	Fiber to the Curb / Kerb
FTTDP	Fiber to the Distribution Point
FTTD	Fiber to the Desktop
FTTE/Z	Fiber to the Enclosure / Zone
FTTF	Fiber to the Frontage
FTTH	Fiber to the Home
FTTLA	Fiber to the Last-Amplifier
FTTN	Fiber to the Note
FTTO	Fiber to the Office
FTTP	Fiber to the Premises
FTTX	Fiber to the X
FUD	Fully Undetectable
GCM	Galois Counter Mode
GCP	Google Cloud Platform
GDPR	General Data Protection Regulation
GMSA	Group Managed Service Accounts
GOT	Global Offset Table
GPON	Gigabit-Capable Passive Optical Networks
GPO	Group Policy Object
GPP	Group Policy Preferences
GRC	Governance, Risk Management and Compliance
GRE	Generic Routing Encapsulation
GRPC	Google Remote Procedure Calls
GSSAPI	Generic Security Services Application Program Interface
gTLD	Generic Top-Level Domain
GUID	Globally Unique Identifier
HBCI	Home Banking Computer Interface
HFC	Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial
HID	Human Interface Device
HIDS	Host-Based Intrusion Detection System
HIPS	Host-based Intrusion Prevention System
HMAC	Hash-Based Message Authentication Code
HOTP	HMAC-Based One-Time Password
HPC	High Performance Computing
HQL	Hybernate Query Language
HSDPA	High-Speed Downlink Packet Access
HSRP	Host Standby Router Protocol
HSTS	HTTP Strict Transport Security
HTA	HTML Application
HTML	Hypertext Markup Language
IAM	Identity Access Management
IAVM	Information Assurance Vulnerbaility Alert
iBGP	Internal Border Gateway Protocol
IBN	Intent-Based Networking
ICMP	Internet Control Message Protocol
IDN	International Domain Name
IDOR	Insecure Direct Object Reference
IDS	Intrusion Detection System
IEC	International Electrotechnical Commission
IFS	Internal Field Separator
IGMP	Internet Group Management Protocol
IGRP	Interior Gateway Routing
IKE	Internet Key Exchange
IMAP	Internet Message Access Protocol
IMDS	Instance Metadata Service Version
IMEI	International Mobile Equipment Identity
IMSI	International Mobile Subscriber Identity
IOA	Indicator of Attack
IOC	Indicator of Compromise
IOMMU	Input-Output Memory Management Unit
IPAM	IP Address Management
IPC	Inter-Process Communication
IPFIX	Internet Protocol Flow Information Export
IPMI	Intelligent Platform Management Interface
IPSEC	Internet Protocol Security
IPS	Intrusion Prevention System
IP	Internet Protocol
IRDP	ICMP Router Discovery Protocol
IS-IS	Intermediate System to Intermediate System
ISAC	Information Sharing and Analysis Center
ISAMKP	Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol
ISO	International Organization for Standardization
I	Integrity
JEA	Just Enough Administration
JSON	JavaScript Object Notation
JSP	Java Server Pages
JS	JavaScript
JWKS	JSON Web Key Set
KASLR	Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization
KDC	Key Distribution Center
KQL	Kibana Query Language
LAPS	Local Administrator Password Solution
LDAP	Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
LEAP	Lightweight Extensible Authentication
LFI	Local File Inclusion
LIFO	Last In, First Out
LINQ	Language-Integrated Query
LKM	Loadable Kernel Module
LLC	Logical Link Layer
LLMNR	Link-Local Multicast Name Resolution
LLM	Large Language Model
LOC	Logistic Operation Center
LORAWAN	Long Range Wide Area Network
LOTL	Living of the Land
LPD	Line Printer Daemon
LQL	Lucene Query Language
LSASS	Local Security Authority Subsystem Service
LSA	Local Security Authority
LXC	Linux Container
LXD	Linux Daemon
MAC	Mandatory Access Control
MAC	Medium Access Control
MAC	Message Authentication Code
mDNS	Multicast DNS
MDR	Managed Detection and Response
MD	Message Digest
MEAN	MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, Node.js
MFA	Multi-Faktor Authentication
MIB	Management Information Base
MIME	Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
MOK	Machine Owner Key
MPLS	Multiprotocol Label Switching
MQTT	Message Queue Telemetry Transport Protocol
MS-NRPC	Microsoft NetLogon Remote Protocol
MSHTA	Microsoft HTML Application
MSSP	Managed Security Service Provider
MSS	Maximum Segment Size
MSTG	Mobile Security Testing Guide
MTASTS	Mail Transfer Agent-Strict Transport Security
MTA	Mail Transfer Agent
MTLS	Mutual TLS
NAK	Negative Acknowledgement
NBNS	NetBIOS Name Server
NBT-NS	NetBIOS Name Service
NCSC	National Cyber Security Centre
NDA	Non-Disclosure Agreement
NDR	Network Detection and Response
NFC	Near-Field Communication
NFS	Network File System
NGAV	Next-Generation Antivirus
NGE	Next Generation Encryption
NGFW	Next-Generation Firewall
NIDS	Network-based Intrusion Detection System
NIPS	Network-based Intrusion Prevention System
NIST	National Institute of Standards and Technology
NLA	Network Level Authentication
NMI	Non-maskable Interrupt
NMS	Network Monitoring System
NOC	Network Operation Center
NONCE	Number used once
NoSQL	Not only SQL
NoTW	Mark-of-the-Web
NSX	Full-Stack Network & Security Virtuakization
NTDS.DIT	New Technology Directory Services Directory Information Tree
NTFS	New Technology File System
NTLM	New Technology Lan Manager
NX	Non-Executable Stack
OCSP	Online Certificate Status Protocol
OGNL	Object-Graph Navigation Language
OIDC	Open ID Connect
OID	Object Identifier
OOB	Out-of-Band
OPSEC	Operations Security
OPtH	Overpass-the-Hash
OSCP	Offensive Security Certified Professional
OSINT	Open Source Intelligence Tools
OSPF	Open Shortest Path First
OSSEC	Open Source HIDS Security
OSSEM	Open Source Security Event Metadata
OSSTMM	Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual
OSWE	Offensive Security Web Expert
OVAL	Open Vulnerability and Assessment Framework
OWASP	Open Web Application Security Project
OXID	Object Exporter Identifier
PAC	Privileged Account Certificate
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Module
PAM	Privileged Access Management
PAP	Password Authentication Protocol
PBKDF1	Password-Based Key Derivation Function 1
PBKDF2	Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2
PCI	Payment Card Industry
PEAP-MSCHAPv2	Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol MS-CHAPv2
PEAP	Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol
PEB	Process Environment Block
PEM	Privacy Enhanced Mail
PIE	Position Independent Executable
PII	Personally Identifiable Information
PIM	Privileged Identity Management
PI	Process Instrumentation
PKCS	Public-Key Cryptography Standard
PKI	Public-Key Infrastructure
PNAC	Port-Based Network Access Control
POC	Phone Operation Center
POP	Post Office Protocol
POSIX	Portable Operating System Interface
PPL	Protected Process Light
PQC	Post-Quantum Cryptography
ProgID	Programmatic ID
PR	Privileges Required
PSAD	Port Scan Attack Detector
PSA	Public Service Announcement
PTA	Permission-to-Attack
PTK	Pairwise Transient Key
PTK	Penetration Testing Kit
QCR	Quantum Computer Resistant
QEMU	Quick Emulator
QUIC	Quicik UDP Internet Connections
R&D	Research and Development
RAX	Register "a" extended
RBAC	Role Based Access Control
RBCD	Resource Based Constrained Delegation
RBL	Realt-Time Blackhole List
RBL	Return Black List
RBP	Register Base Pointer
RBVM	Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
RBX	Register "b" extended
RC4	Rivest Cipher 4
RCX	Register "c" extended
RDI	Register Destination Index
RDNS	REverse Domain Name System
RDP	Responsible Disclosure Policy
RDX	Register "d" extended
RELRO	Relocation Read-Only
REST	Representional State Transfer
RFC	Request for Comments
RFI	Remote File Inclusion
RID	Relative Identifier
RIP	Routing Information Protocol
RNDC	Remote Name Daemon Control
ROE	Rules of Engagement
ROP	Return Oriented Programming
RPC	Remote Procedure Calls
RPKI	Resource Public Key Infrastructure
RSA	Rivest-Shamir-Adlemann Algorithm
RSI	Register Source Index
RSP	Register Stack Pointer
RTCO	Red Team Certified Operator
RTP	Real-Time Transport Protocol
RTSP	Real Time Streaming Protocol
RX	Receiving
S-SDLC	Secure Software Development Lifecycle
S3	Simple Storage Service
S4U	Service for User
SAML	Security Assertion Markup Language
SAM	Security Accounts Manager
SASL	Simple Authentication and Security Layer
SAST	Static Application Security Testing
SAS	Secure Attention Sequence
SA	Security Associations
SCD	Source Code Disclosure
SCEP	Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol
SCM	Service Control Manager
SCTP	Stream Control Transmission Protocol
SD-WAN	Software-Defined Wide Area Network
SDDL	Security Descriptor Definition Language
SDLC	Software Development Life Cycle
SDL	Security Development Lifecycle
SDO	Statement of Applicability
SD	Security Descriptor
SE	Search Engine Optimization
SHIM	First Stage Bootloader
SID	Security Identifier
SIEM	Security Information and Event Management
SIKE	Supersingular Isogeny Key Encapsulation
SIM	Subscriber Identity Module
SIP	Session Initiation Protocol
SKEL	Skeleton
SLAAC	Stateless Address Auto-Configuration
SMB	Server Message Block
SMIME	Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension
SMSS	Session Manager Subsystem
SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
SOAP	Simple Object Access Protocol
SOAR	Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response
SOA	Statement of Applicability
SOC	Security Operations Center
SoC	System on Chips
SOP	Same Origin Policy
SOP	Standard Operating Procedure
SOQL	Salesforce Object Query Language
SPA	Sender Protocol Address
SPF	Sender Policy Framework
SPI	Security Parameter Index
SPN	Service Principal Name
SPX	Secure PDF Exchange
SQLI	Server-Query Language Injection
SQL	Structured Query Language
SRI	Subresource Integrity
SSDLC	Secure Software Development Life Cycle
SSDT	Secondary System Descriptor Tables
SSE	Server-Side Encryption
SSI	Server Side Includes
SSIS	SQL Server Integration Services
SSL	Secure Socket Layer
SSN	Syscall Service Numbers
SSOT	Single Source of Truth
SSO	Single Sign-On
SSPR	Self-Service Password Reset
SSRF	Server-Side Request Forgery
SSSD	System Security Services Daemon
SSTF	Scroll to Text Fragment
SSTI	Server-Side Template Injection
STAS	Sophos Transparent Authentication Suite
STEM	Systematic, Threat, Evaluation, Methodology
STIG	Security Technical Implementation Guide
STIX	Structured Threat Information Expression
STRIDE	Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege
STS	Security Token Service
S	Scope
TAN	Transaction Authentication Number
TAXII	Trusted Automated Exchange of Intelligence
TCSEC	Trusted Computer System Evalutation Criteria
TEAP	Tunnel Extensible Authentication Protocol
TEE	Trusted Execution Environment
TELNET	Teletype Network
TE	Transfer-Encoding
TGS	Ticket Granting Service
TGT	Ticket Granting Ticket
THA	Target Hardware Address
TIBER-EU	Threat Intelligence-Based Ethical Red-Teaming
TI	Threat Intelligence
TLD	Top-Level Domain
TLP	Traffic Light Protocol
TLPT	Thread Led Penetration Testing
TLS	Transport Layer Security
TOS	Terms of Service
TOTP	Time-Bases One-Time Password
TPM	Trusted Platform Module
TPS	Testing Procedure Specification
TSIG	Transaction Signatures
TTP	Tactics, Techniques and Procedures
TX	Transmitting
UAF	Use-After-Free
UIPI	User Interface Privilege Isolation
UI	User Interaction
UI	User Interface
UPN	User Principal Name
URI	Uniform Resource Identifier
URL	Uniform Resource Locator
USART	Universal Synchronous/Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter
UUID	Universally Unique Identifier
VACM	View-Based Access Control Model
VBA	Visual Basic for Application
VDP	Vulnerbaility Disclosure Program
VICI	Versatile IKE Configuration Interface
VOC	Video Operation Center
VoLTE	Voice over Long-Term Evolution
VPN	Virtual Private Network
VSS	Volume Shadow Copy
WAN	Wide Area Network
WAP	Web Application Protection
WASM	Web Assembly
WAT	Web Assembly Text Format
WCD	Web Cache Deception
WDAC	Windows Defender Application Control
WDM	Wavelength-Division Multiplexing
WEP	Wired Equivalent Privacy
WinRM	Windows Remote Management
WinRS	Windows Remote Shell
WMIC	Windows Management + Instrumentation Command-Line
WMI	Windows Management Instrumentation
WOFF	Web Open Font Format
WORM	Write Once, Read Many
WPA2	Wi-Fi Protected Access 2
WPAD	Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol
WPA	Wi-Fi Protected Access
WSH	Windows Script Host
WSTG	Web Security Testing Guide
XDP	Express Data Path
XDR	Extended Detection and Response
XHR	XML HTTP Request
XOR	Exclusive or
XSLT	Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation
XSS	Cross-Site Scripting
XST	Cross-Site Tracing
XXE	XML External Entity
YAML	YAML Ain't Markup Language
YUM	Yellowdog Updater, Modified
ZTA	Zero Trust Approach
ZTNA	Zero Trust Network Access