Cybersecurity news and best practices are full of acronyms and abbreviations. Without understanding what each one means, it’s difficult to comprehend the significance of most major threats and the essential tools that help prevent them.
Our list below contains 100 of the most common cybersecurity abbreviations that you may encounter in the cybersecurity industry.
CYBERSECURITY ABBREVIATIONS
Number | Acronym | Meaning |
1 | 2FA | Two-Factor Authentication |
2 | AC | Access Control |
3 | AI | Artificial Intelligence |
4 | AES | Advanced Encryption Standard |
5 | APT | Advanced Persistent Threat |
6 | APWG | Anti-Phishing Working Group |
7 | ASV | Approved Scanning Vendor for PCI |
8 | ATT&CK | Adversarial Tactics, Techniques and Common Knowledge |
9 | AUP | Acceptable Use Policy |
10 | AV | Antivirus |
11 | AVIEN | Antivirus Information Exchange Network |
12 | BAS | Breach and Attack Simulation |
13 | BBP | Bug Bounty Program |
14 | BYOD | Bring Your Own Device |
15 | CASB | Cloud Access Security Broker |
16 | CAPTCHA | Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart |
17 | CEH | Certified Ethical Hacker |
18 | CERT | Computer Emergency Response Team |
19 | CHAP | Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol |
20 | CIRT | Computer Incident Response Team |
21 | CIS | Center for Internet Security |
22 | CISA | Certified Information Systems Auditor/Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency |
23 | CISM | Certified Information Systems Security Manager |
24 | CISO | Chief Information Security Officer |
25 | CISSP | Certified Information Systems Security Professional |
26 | COBIT | Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies |
27 | CSA | Cloud Security Alliance |
28 | CSO | Chief Security Officer |
29 | CSP | Content Security Policy |
30 | CTI | Cyber Threat Intelligence |
31 | CVE | Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures |
32 | DAST | Dynamic Application Security Testing |
33 | DC | Domain Controller |
34 | DLP | Data Loss Prevention |
35 | DoS | Denial of Service |
36 | DDoS | Distributed Denial of Service |
37 | DNS | Domain Name System |
38 | DRP | Disaster Recovery Plan |
39 | EDR | Endpoint Detection & Response |
40 | ERM | Enterprise Risk Management |
41 | FDE | Full Disk Encryption |
42 | FWaaS | Firewall as a Service |
43 | GDPR | General Data Privacy Regulation |
44 | GRC | Governance, Risk, & Compliance |
45 | HTTPS | Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure |
46 | IAM | Identity and Access Management |
47 | IBE | Identity-Based Encryption |
48 | IDS | Intrusion Detection System |
49 | IDPS | Intrusion Detection and Prevention System |
50 | IoT | Internet of Things |
51 | IPS | Intrusion Prevention System |
52 | IRP | Incident Response Plan |
53 | ISO | International Organization for Standardization |
54 | ISSE | Information Systems Security Engineer |
55 | ISSO | Information Systems Security Officer |
56 | ISSPM | Information Systems Security Project Manager |
57 | ITAM | IT Asset Management |
58 | ITSM | IT Service Management |
59 | MDR | Managed Detection and Response |
60 | MFA | Multi-Factor Authentication |
61 | MSP | Managed Service Provider |
62 | MSSP | Managed Security Service Provider |
63 | NAC | Network Access Control |
64 | NCSA | National Cyber Security Alliance |
65 | NGFW | Next Generation Firewall |
66 | NIST | National Institutes of Standards and Technology |
67 | PAOBOAU | Process Acting On Behalf Of an Authorized User |
68 | OPSEC | Operational Security |
69 | OSINT | Open Source intelligence |
70 | PAM | Privileged Access Management |
71 | PCI-DSS | Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard |
72 | RM | Risk Management |
73 | RMF | Risk Management Framework |
74 | RPO | Recovery Point Objective |
75 | RTO | Recovery Time Objective |
76 | SA | Situational Awareness |
77 | SASE | Secure Access Service Edge |
78 | SD-WAN | Software Defined Wide Area Network |
79 | SECaaS | Security as a Service |
80 | SIEM | Security Information and Event Management |
81 | SIM | Security Information Management |
82 | SOAR | Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response |
83 | SOC | Security Operations Center |
84 | SSL | Secure Sockets Layer |
85 | SSO | Single Sign-On |
86 | SWG | Secure Web Gateway |
87 | TCP | Transport Control Protocol |
88 | TLS | Transport Layer Security |
89 | TPRM | Third-Party Risk Management |
90 | UDP | User Datagram Protocol |
91 | UEBA | User and Entity Behavior Analytics |
92 | VPN | Virtual Private Network |
93 | WAF | Web Application Firewall |
94 | WAP | Wireless Access Point |
95 | WAAPaaS | Web Application and API Protection as a Service |
96 | WPA | WiFi Protected Access |
97 | WPS | WiFi Protected Setup |
98 | WTLS | Wireless Transport Layer Security |
99 | XDR | Extended Detection and Response |
100 | ZTNA | Zero Trust Network Access |