Unit 1: AP Cybersecurity Vocabulary

Social Engineering

The manipulation of people (rather than systems) into divulging confidential information or performing actions that compromise security.

Phishing

A social engineering attack, typically via email, that impersonates a trusted entity to trick victims into revealing sensitive data or clicking malicious links.

Elicitation

A subtle technique for drawing out information from a target through seemingly normal, casual conversation without raising suspicion.

Intimidation

A social engineering tactic that uses fear, threats, or perceived authority to pressure a victim into compliance.

Urgency

A manipulation tactic that pressures a target to act quickly before thinking it through, reducing their ability to scrutinize a request.

Evil Twin

A rogue Wi-Fi access point set up to mimic a legitimate network's SSID, tricking users into connecting so the attacker can intercept their traffic.

Jamming

Deliberately transmitting radio frequency signals to interfere with and disrupt legitimate wireless communications.

War Driving

Driving around with a wireless device to locate and map unsecured or vulnerable Wi-Fi networks.

SSID

The public name broadcast by a wireless network that allows devices to identify and connect to it.

MFA

Multi-Factor Authentication; requires two or more independent verification factors (something you know, have, or are) to grant access.

VPN

Virtual Private Network; creates an encrypted tunnel over a public network, protecting data in transit and masking the user's location/identity.

Zero Day

A vulnerability unknown to the vendor with no available patch, giving defenders no time to respond before it can be exploited.

Voice Cloning

The use of AI to replicate a person's voice from sample audio, often used in fraud or impersonation attacks.

Deepfake

AI-generated synthetic media that convincingly depicts a real person saying or doing something they did not.

LLM

Large Language Model; an AI model trained on massive text datasets to understand and generate human-like language, relevant both as a defensive tool and a potential attack enabler.

DoS

Denial of Service; an attack that overwhelms a system, network, or service with traffic or requests so legitimate users cannot access it.