Security+ Certification/Acronyms
| Acronym | Full name |
|---|---|
| AAA | Authentication, Authorization, and
Accounting |
| ACL | Access Control List |
| AES | Advanced Encryption Standard |
| AES-256 | Advanced Encryption Standards 256-bit |
| AH | Authentication Header |
| AI | Artificial Intelligence |
| AIS | Automated Indicator Sharing |
| ALE | Annualized Loss Expectancy |
| AP | Access Point |
| API | Application Programming Interface |
| APT | Advanced Persistent Threat |
| ARO | Annualized Rate of Occurrence |
| ARP | Address Resolution Protocol |
| ASLR | Address Space Layout Randomization |
| ATT&CK | Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and
Common Knowledge |
| AUP | Acceptable Use Policy |
| AV | Antivirus |
| BASH | Bourne Again Shell |
| BCP | Business Continuity Planning |
| BGP | Border Gateway Protocol |
| BIA | Business Impact Analysis |
| BIOS | Basic Input/Output System |
| BPA | Business Partners Agreement |
| BPDU | Bridge Protocol Data Unit |
| BYOD | Bring Your Own Device |
| CA | Certificate Authority |
| CAPTCHA | Completely Automated Public Turing Test to
Tell Computers and Humans Apart |
| CAR | Corrective Action Report |
| CASB | Cloud Access Security Broker |
| CBC | Cipher Block Chaining |
| CCMP | Counter Mode/CBC-MAC Protocol |
| CCTV | Closed-circuit Television |
| CERT | Computer Emergency Response Team |
| CFB | Cipher Feedback |
| CHAP | Challenge Handshake Authentication
Protocol |
| CIA | Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability |
| CIO | Chief Information Officer |
| CIRT | Computer Incident Response Team |
| CMS | Content Management System |
| COOP | Continuity of Operation Planning |
| COPE | Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled |
| CP | Contingency Planning |
| CRC | Cyclical Redundancy Check |
| CRL | Certificate Revocation List |
| CSO | Chief Security Officer |
| CSP | Cloud Service Provider |
| CSR | Certificate Signing Request |
| CSRF | Cross-site Request Forgery |
| CSU | Channel Service Unit |
| CTM | Counter Mode |
| CTO | Chief Technology Officer |
| CVE | Common Vulnerability Enumeration |
| CVSS | Common Vulnerability Scoring System |
| CYOD | Choose Your Own Device |
| DAC | Discretionary Access Control |
| DBA | Database Administrator |
| DDoS | Distributed Denial of Service |
| DEP | Data Execution Prevention |
| DES | Digital Encryption Standard |
| DHCP | Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol |
| DHE | Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral |
| DKIM | DomainKeys Identified Mail |
| DLL | Dynamic Link Library |
| DLP | Data Loss Prevention |
| DMARC | Domain Message Authentication Reporting
and Conformance |
| DNAT | Destination Network Address Translation |
| DNS | Domain Name System |
| DoS | Denial of Service |
| DPO | Data Privacy Officer |
| DRP | Disaster Recovery Plan |
| DSA | Digital Signature Algorithm |
| DSL | Digital Subscriber Line |
| EAP | Extensible Authentication Protocol |
| ECB | Electronic Code Book |
| ECC | Elliptic Curve Cryptography |
| ECDHE | Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral |
| ECDSA | Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm |
| EDR | Endpoint Detection and Response |
| EFS | Encrypted File System |
| ERP | Enterprise Resource Planning |
| ESN | Electronic Serial Number |
| ESP | Encapsulated Security Payload |
| FACL | File System Access Control List |
| FDE | Full Disk Encryption |
| FIM | File Integrity Management |
| FPGA | Field Programmable Gate Array |
| FRR | False Rejection Rate |
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol |
| FTPS | Secured File Transfer Protocol |
| GCM | Galois Counter Mode |
| GDPR | General Data Protection Regulation |
| GPR | GNU Privacy Guard |
| GPO | Group Policy Object |
| GPS | Global Positioning System |
| GPU | Graphics Processing Unit |
| GRE | Generic Routing Encapsulation |
| HA | High Availability |
| HDD | Hard Disk Drive |
| HIDS | Host-based Intrusion Detection System |
| HIPS | Host-based Intrusion Prevention System |
| HMAC | Hashed Message Authentication Code |
| HOTP | HMAC-based One-time Password |
| HSM | Hardware Security Module |
| HTML | Hypertext Markup Language |
| HTTP | Hypertext Transfer Protocol |
| HTTPS | Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure |
| HVAC | Heating, Ventilation Air Conditioning |
| IaaS | Infrastructure as a Service |
| IaC | Infrastructure as Code |
| IAM | Identity and Access Management |
| ICMP | Internet Control Message Protocol |
| ICS | Industrial Control Systems |
| IDEA | International Data Encryption Algorithm |
| IDF | Intermediate Distribution Frame |
| IdP | Identity Provider |
| IDS | Intrusion Detection System |
| IEEE | Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers |
| IKE | Internet Key Exchange |
| IM | Instant Messaging |
| IMAP | Internet Message Access Protocol |
| IoC | Indicators of Compromise |
| IoT | Internet of Things |
| IP | Internet Protocol |
| IPS | Intrusion Prevention System |
| IPSec | Internet Protocol Security |
| IR | Incident Response |
| IRC | Internet Relay Chat |
| IRP | Incident Response Plan |
| ISO | International Standards Organization |
| ISP | Internet Service Provider |
| ISSO | Information Systems Security Officer |
| IV | Initialization Vector |
| KDC | Key Distribution Center |
| KEK | Key Encryption Key |
| L2TP | Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol |
| LAN | Local Area Network |
| LDAP | Lightweight Directory Access Protocol |
| LEAP | Lightweight Extensible Authentication
Protocol |
| MaaS | Monitoring as a Service |
| MAC | Mandatory Access Control |
| MAC | Media Access Control |
| MAC | Message Authentication Code |
| MAN | Metropolitan Area Network |
| MBR | Master Boot Record |
| MD5 | Message Digest 5 |
| MDF | Main Distribution Frame |
| MDM | Mobile Device Management |
| MFA | Multifactor Authentication |
| MFD | Multifunction Device |
| MFP | Multifunction Printer |
| ML | Machine Learning |
| MMS | Multimedia Message Service |
| MOA | Memorandum of Agreement |
| MOU | Memorandum of Understanding |
| MPLS | Multi-protocol Label Switching |
| MSA | Master Service Agreement |
| MSCHAP | Microsoft Challenge Handshake
Authentication Protocol |
| MSP | Managed Service Provider |
| MSSP | Managed Security Service Provider |
| MTBF | Mean Time Between Failures |
| MTTF | Mean Time to Failure |
| MTTR | Mean Time to Recover |
| MTU | Maximum Transmission Unit |
| NAC | Network Access Control |
| NAT | Network Address Translation |
| NDA | Non-disclosure Agreement |
| NFC | Near Field Communication |
| NGFW | Next-generation Firewall |
| NIDS | Network-based Intrusion Detection System |
| NIPS | Network-based Intrusion Prevention System |
| NIST | National Institute of Standards & Technology |
| NTFS | New Technology File System |
| NTLM | New Technology LAN Manager |
| NTP | Network Time Protocol |
| OAUTH | Open Authorization |
| OCSP | Online Certificate Status Protocol |
| OID | Object Identifier |
| OS | Operating System |
| OSINT | Open-source Intelligence |
| OSPF | Open Shortest Path First |
| OT | Operational Technology |
| OTA | Over the Air |
| OVAL | Open Vulnerability Assessment Language |
| P12 | PKCS #12 |
| P2P | Peer to Peer |
| PaaS | Platform as a Service |
| PAC | Proxy Auto Configuration |
| PAM | Privileged Access Management |
| PAM | Pluggable Authentication Modules |
| PAP | Password Authentication Protocol |
| PAT | Port Address Translation |
| PBKDF2 | Password-based Key Derivation Function 2 |
| PBX | Private Branch Exchange |
| PCAP | Packet Capture |
| PCI DSS | Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standard |
| PDU | Power Distribution Unit |
| PEAP | Protected Extensible Authentication
Protocol |
| PED | Personal Electronic Device |
| PEM | Privacy Enhanced Mail |
| PFS | Perfect Forward Secrecy |
| PGP | Pretty Good Privacy |
| PHI | Personal Health Information |
| PII | Personally Identifiable Information |
| PIV | Personal Identity Verification |
| PKCS | Public Key Cryptography Standards |
| PKI | Public Key Infrastructure |
| POP | Post Office Protocol |
| POTS | Plain Old Telephone Service |
| PPP | Point-to-Point Protocol |
| PPTP | Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol |
| PSK | Pre-shared Key |
| PTZ | Pan-tilt-zoom |
| PUP | Potentially Unwanted Program |
| RA | Recovery Agent |
| RA | Registration Authority |
| RACE | Research and Development in Advanced
Communications Technologies in Europe |
| RAD | Rapid Application Development |
| RADIUS | Remote Authentication Dial-in User Service |
| RAID | Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks |
| RAS | Remote Access Server |
| RAT | Remote Access Trojan |
| RBAC | Role-based Access Control |
| RBAC | Rule-based Access Control |
| RC4 | Rivest Cipher version 4 |
| RDP | Remote Desktop Protocol |
| RFID | Radio Frequency Identifier |
| RIPEMD | RACE Integrity Primitives Evaluation
Message Digest |
| ROI | Return on Investment |
| RPO | Recovery Point Objective |
| RSA | Rivest, Shamir, & Adleman |
| RTBH | Remotely Triggered Black Hole |
| RTO | Recovery Time Objective |
| RTOS | Real-time Operating System |
| RTP | Real-time Transport Protocol |
| S/MIME | Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions |
| SaaS | Software as a Service |
| SAE | Simultaneous Authentication of Equals |
| SAML | Security Assertions Markup Language |
| SAN | Storage Area Network |
| SAN | Subject Alternative Name |
| SASE | Secure Access Service Edge |
| SCADA | Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition |
| SCAP | Security Content Automation Protocol |
| SCEP | Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol |
| SD-WAN | Software-defined Wide Area Network |
| SDK | Software Development Kit |
| SDLC | Software Development Lifecycle |
| SDLM | Software Development Lifecycle
Methodology |
| SDN | Software-defined Networking |
| SE Linux | Security-enhanced Linux |
| SED | Self-encrypting Drives |
| SEH | Structured Exception Handler |
| SFTP | Secured File Transfer Protocol |
| SHA | Secure Hashing Algorithm |
| SHTTP | Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol |
| SIEM | Security Information and Event Management |
| SIM | Subscriber Identity Module |
| SLA | Service-level Agreement |
| SLE | Single Loss Expectancy |
| SMS | Short Message Service |
| SMTP | Simple Mail Transfer Protocol |
| SMTPS | Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Secure |
| SNMP | Simple Network Management Protocol |
| SOAP | Simple Object Access Protocol |
| SOAR | Security Orchestration, Automation,
Response |
| SoC | System on Chip |
| SOC | Security Operations Center |
| SOW | Statement of Work |
| SPF | Sender Policy Framework |
| SPIM | Spam over Internet Messaging |
| SQL | Structured Query Language |
| SQLi | SQL Injection |
| SRTP | Secure Real-Time Protocol |
| SSD | Solid State Drive |
| SSH | Secure Shell |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer |
| SSO | Single Sign-on |
| STIX | Structured Threat Information eXchange |
| SWG | Secure Web Gateway |
| TACACS+ | Terminal Access Controller Access Control
System |
| TAXII | Trusted Automated eXchange of Indicator
Information |
| TCP/IP | Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol |
| TGT | Ticket Granting Ticket |
| TKIP | Temporal Key Integrity Protocol |
| TLS | Transport Layer Security |
| TOC | Time-of-check |
| TOTP | Time-based One-time Password |
| TOU | Time-of-use |
| TPM | Trusted Platform Module |
| TTP | Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures |
| TSIG | Transaction Signature |
| UAT | User Acceptance Testing |
| UAV | Unmanned Aerial Vehicle |
| UDP | User Datagram Protocol |
| UEFI | Unified Extensible Firmware Interface |
| UEM | Unified Endpoint Management |
| UPS | Uninterruptable Power Supply |
| URI | Uniform Resource Identifier |
| URL | Universal Resource Locator |
| USB | Universal Serial Bus |
| USB OTG | USB On the Go |
| UTM | Unified Threat Management |
| UTP | Unshielded Twisted Pair |
| VBA | Visual Basic |
| VDE | Virtual Desktop Environment |
| VDI | Virtual Desktop Infrastructure |
| VLAN | Virtual Local Area Network |
| VLSM | Variable Length Subnet Masking |
| VM | Virtual Machine |
| VoIP | Voice over IP |
| VPC | Virtual Private Cloud |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
| VTC | Video Teleconferencing |
| WAF | Web Application Firewall |
| WAP | Wireless Access Point |
| WEP | Wired Equivalent Privacy |
| WIDS | Wireless Intrusion Detection System |
| WIPS | Wireless Intrusion Prevention System |
| WO | Work Order |
| WPA | Wi-Fi Protected Access |
| WPS | Wi-Fi Protected Setup |
| WTLS | Wireless TLS |
| XDR | Extended Detection and Response |
| XML | Extensible Markup Language |
| XOR | Exclusive Or |
| XSRF | Cross-site Request Forgery |
| XSS | Cross-site Scripting |