Modules 1-3: Security Awareness and Practical Cybersecurity

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the core concepts, principles, threat actors, attack vectors, and defenses detailed across Modules 1 through 3.

Cybersecurity

The art and practice of protecting the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of digital information on devices that store, manipulate, and transmit it, achieved through products, people, and procedures.

Binary Label (NIST)

A single product label, also called a 'seal of approval,' indicating that hardware or software has satisfied a baseline cybersecurity standard (e.g., an Energy Star seal).

Descriptive Label (NIST)

An informational label that presents objective facts regarding the properties or features of a product without providing a rating or grade.

Graded Label (NIST)

A tiered label that indicates the relative degree to which a product meets a specific standard based on increasing levels of performance, often shown with colors, icons, or ratings.

Layered Label Approach

A labeling approach that presents an initial summary label to the consumer with online references, web links, or Quick Response (QR) codes linking to more detailed information.

User Confusion

The single factor accounting for the greatest difficulty in preventing attacks, resulting from end-users being required to make complex security decisions with little or no instruction.

Security and Convenience Relationship

An inversely proportional relationship wherein increasing security decreases convenience, and increasing convenience decreases security.

Confidentiality

The cybersecurity protection ensuring that only authorized parties can access and view sensitive information.

Integrity

The cybersecurity protection ensuring that information is accurate and has not been altered by an unauthorized person or malicious software.

Availability

The cybersecurity protection ensuring that information is readily accessible to authorized users when needed and denied to unauthorized parties.

Authentication

The process of providing proof that an individual is genuinely who they claim to be and not an imposter.

Authorization

The act of granting permission or approval to an authenticated individual to access specific technology resources.

Accounting

The tracking and recording of events to produce an audit trail detailing who accessed a resource, from where, and at what specific time.

Asset

An item of value that requires protection in a security environment.

Threat

A type of action or event that has the potential to cause harm or loss to an asset.

Threat Agent

A person or element with the power and capability to carry out a threat.

Vulnerability

A flaw or weakness in hardware, software, or physical controls that can be exploited by a threat actor (from the Latin meaning 'wound').

Attack Vector

A pathway or mechanism used by a threat actor to penetrate a system and exploit a vulnerability.

Risk

A situation involving exposure to danger or the probability that a threat will successfully exploit a vulnerability.

Cyberterrorism

Premeditated, politically motivated attacks against information, computer systems, and data that result in violence or panic among noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

An EU regulation requiring organizations processing or holding personal data of EU residents—regardless of the company's location—to safeguard data and notify authorities of breaches.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)

A federal law requiring healthcare enterprises and their third-party business associates to guard protected health information in paper and electronic formats.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Sarbox)

A U.S. law fighting corporate fraud by enforcing stringent reporting requirements and internal controls on electronic financial reporting systems of publicly traded companies.

Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)

A 1999 federal law requiring financial institutions to disclose their customer data-sharing practices and protect paper and electronic records containing personally identifiable financial information.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

A set of security standards that all merchants and companies that process, store, or transmit credit card data must comply with, regardless of size or transaction volume.

Black Hat Hackers

Attackers who violate computer security for personal gain (such as stealing credit card numbers) or to inflict malicious damage.

White Hat Hackers

Ethical attackers who probe systems for weaknesses with an organization's permission and report findings privately back to the organization.

Gray Hat Hackers

Attackers who break into systems without authorization but not for personal gain; instead, they publicly disclose vulnerabilities to shame the organization into fixing them.

Threat Actor

An individual or entity responsible for cyber incidents targeting technology equipment, networks, and users.

Cybercriminals

Threat actors motivated primarily by financial fortune rather than notoriety or skill demonstration.

Script Kiddies

Unskilled attackers who download and execute automated attack tools or scripts from the Internet rather than creating their own code.

Brokers

Individuals who discover software vulnerabilities and sell that knowledge to the highest bidder, such as foreign governments or criminal buyers, rather than reporting it to vendors.

Insiders

Employees, contractors, or business partners who abuse their authorized internal access to sabotage systems or steal intellectual property.

Hactivists

Threat actors driven by ideological principles or political agendas who attack networks to make a statement, retaliate, or conduct disinformation campaigns.

State Actors

Government-sponsored, highly skilled attackers tasked with conducting cyber operations against foreign enemies or domestic targets.

Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)

A class of multiyear intrusion campaigns, typically operated by state actors, that deploy sophisticated tools to infiltrate systems and silently extract data over extended periods.

Five Elements of a Practical Security Strategy

A defense model based on medieval castle strategies: block attacks, update defenses, minimize losses, use layers, and stay alert.

Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA)

A federal law limiting a consumer's financial liability to $50 for unauthorized transactions on a compromised credit card.

Authentication Factors

The three primary categories of proof used in IT authentication: something you know (password), something you have (token/device), and something you are (biometrics).

Authentication Attributes

Secondary characteristics used to prove authenticity, including somewhere you are, something you can do, something you exhibit, and someone you know.

Password

A secret combination of letters, numbers, and characters known only to the user, presented as proof of identity.

Message Digest (Hash)

A scrambled string of characters generated by passing a password through a one-way mathematical hash algorithm, stored by servers to verify logins without saving plaintext passwords.

Appending

A common human password habit of adding numbers or punctuation at the end of word strings (e.g., cheer99 or chris#6).

Replacing

A predictable password pattern in which characters are substituted with visually similar numbers or symbols (e.g., passw0rd or denn1s).

Online Brute Force Attack

An attack method where an attacker repeatedly pounds a single account by inputting password guesses until the correct one is discovered.

Password Spraying Attack

A password-guessing technique where an attacker tries one or a few common passwords across many different user accounts to avoid account lockout thresholds.

Password Crackers

Software tools that compare unknown password hashes with known candidate digests derived from leaked wordlists to reveal plaintext passwords.

Social Engineering

A non-technical attack methodology that relies on psychological manipulation and trickery to convince victims to surrender information or perform risky actions.

Credential Harvesting

The reconnaissance process of collecting personal details and passwords about individuals through Internet queries and social networking searches to facilitate impersonation.

Phishing

A social engineering attack where fraudulent emails or web announcements masquerading as legitimate entities lure victims into surrendering credentials or payments.

Invoice Scam

A phishing variation where an attacker sends a fake, urgent overdue bill demanding immediate financial settlement.

Typo Squatting

The malicious practice of registering misspelled domain names of popular websites to redirect mistyping users to fraudulent or advertising-laden sites.

Hoax

A false warning or notification designed to trick users into erasing critical system files or disabling essential security configurations.

Identity Theft

Stealing an individual's personal information (such as a Social Security number) to impersonate them for illicit financial gain, loan acquisition, or fraud.

Password Manager

A software application or secure online vault that generates, encrypts, stores, and retrieves complex, unique passwords across multiple user accounts.

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

An authentication configuration requiring two distinct credentials—typically combining something the user knows (password) with something the user has (one-time phone code)—before granting access.

Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) of 2003

A federal law granting consumers the right to obtain a free credit report from each of the three nationwide credit bureaus once every 12 months.

Zero-Day Attack

An attack that exploits a previously unknown hardware or software vulnerability, giving defenders zero days of prior warning to prepare an update.

Malware

Malicious software that enters a computing device without user consent or knowledge to execute harmful, unwanted actions.

Ransomware

Malicious software engineered to extort money from users by locking system access or rendering data inaccessible until a ransom is paid.

Blocker Ransomware

An early form of ransomware that alters the operating system to prevent normal user access to the computer, often displaying a bogus law enforcement fine.

Cryptomalware

A dangerous strain of ransomware that encrypts user data files across local and connected drives, demanding payment in exchange for a decryption key.

Keylogger

A surveillance tool—existing as hidden software or a hardware dongle plugged into a USB port—that silently logs keystrokes to capture credentials and personal information.

Spyware

Software deployed without user consent that secretly monitors activity and employs system resources to harvest sensitive personal data.

Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP)

Software that is not necessarily malicious but unwanted by the user (such as bundled browser toolbars and bloatware) that often displays obstructive pop-up advertisements.

Trojan

An executable application that masquerades as a benign, useful program while secretly executing malicious background operations.

Remote Access Trojan (RAT)

A specialized Trojan that grants a remote threat actor unauthorized, administrative control over the victim's device using custom communication protocols.

File-Based Virus

Malicious code attached to an executable or data file that executes its payload and replicates to other files on the same host system when opened, requiring human action to spread between computers.

Fileless Virus

Malware that does not write files to a hard drive but executes directly in memory (RAM) by exploiting legitimate system tools and native services.

Living-Off-the-Land Binaries (LOLBins)

Legitimate, native operating system processes, frameworks, and binaries (such as PowerShell and WMI) hijacked by fileless malware to evade detection.

Worm

A self-replicating malicious program (network virus) that spreads automatically across computer networks by exploiting application or OS vulnerabilities without human intervention.

Bot (Zombie)

An infected computer placed under the remote command of a threat actor to execute automated malicious tasks without the owner's knowledge.

Botnet

A logical network consisting of hundreds to millions of compromised bot devices managed collectively by a bot herder.

Command and Control (C&C)

The infrastructure and communication channel through which a bot herder dispatches attack instructions to compromised bot devices.

Backdoor

A mechanism or code modification that bypasses standard system authentication and security controls to provide hidden remote access.

Logic Bomb

Malicious instructions embedded within a legitimate program that remain dormant until triggered by a specific logical event or date.

Rootkit

A stealthy malware package that alters lower-level operating system functions to hide its presence and the existence of other malicious processes from antimalware scanners.

Patch

A software update created by vendors to repair programming flaws and eliminate newly discovered security vulnerabilities in an operating system or application.

Feature Updates (Windows 11)

Annual operating system updates deployed by Microsoft that introduce new functionality and capabilities to the platform.

Quality Updates (Windows 11)

Cumulative monthly updates deployed by Microsoft (typically on the second Tuesday of each month) delivering critical security and reliability fixes.

Antivirus (AV) Software

Security software that inspects storage drives, memory, and opened files for known malicious strings (virus signatures) cataloged in a signature file.

Comprehensive Antimalware Software

An integrated endpoint defense suite combining signature scanning with intrusion prevention, reputation protection, and behavioral monitoring.

Firewall (Packet Filter)

A security barrier designed to inspect inbound and outbound network traffic, blocking unauthorized communications to limit the spread of malware.

Personal Firewall (Application Firewall)

A host-based software program that filters network traffic based on applications running on that specific local machine, dynamically unblocking connections only when approved.

Network Firewall

A hardware-based filter positioned at the perimeter edge of a network to evaluate traffic and protect all attached devices simultaneously.

Air Gap

The security practice of completely isolating a computer or backup storage device from network and data connections to prevent ransomware contamination.

Continuous Cloud Backup

An automated backup solution that monitors files in real time and immediately synchronizes newly created or modified data to a secure remote cloud repository.

Scheduled Local Backup

A user-managed backup routine where copies of critical files are written to physical local media (e.g., an external hard drive) according to a predefined schedule.

3-2-1 Backup Plan

A data protection strategy recommending the maintenance of three total copies of data across at least two distinct storage media types, with one copy stored offsite.