Security — page 4 of 8

Security terms

301. Friction Ridge The ridges present on the skin of the fingers and toes, and on the palms and soles of the feet, which make contact with an incident surface under normal…
302. FRVT (Face Recognition Vendor Test) A series of large-scale independent technology evaluations of face recognition systems. The evaluations have occurred in 2000, 2002, and 2005.
303. Gait An individual's manner of walking. This behavioral characteristic is in the research and development stage of automation.
304. Gallery A passageway within the body of a dam, its foundation, or abutments used for inspection, foundation grouting, and/or drainage.
305. General Support System An interconnected set of information resources under the same direct management control that shares common functionality.
306. Graduated Security A security system that provides several levels (e.g., low, moderate, high) of protection based on threats, risks, available technology, support services…
307. Guard (System) A mechanism limiting the exchange of information between information systems or subsystems.
308. Guessing Entropy A measure of the difficulty that an attacker has to guess the average password used in a system. In this document, entropy is stated in bits.
309. Hacker Someone who breaks into computer systems in order to steal, change or destroy information.
310. Hacktivist An individual who breaches Web sites or secured communications systems to deliver political messages, including those related to foreign policy, or…
311. Hamming Distance The number of non-corresponding digits in a string of binary digits; used to measure dissimilarity.
312. Hand Geometry Recognition A biometric modality that uses the physical structure of an individual�s hand for recognition purposes.
313. Handler A "subroutine" or "method" that is called by Perl when your program needs to respond to some internal event, such as a "signal", or an encounter with an…
314. Hash Function A function used to create a hash value from binary input. The hash is substantially smaller than the text itself, and is generated by the hash function in…
315. Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) (HMAC) A specific construction for calculating a message authentication code (MAC) involving a cryptographic hash function in combination with a secret key.
316. Hashing The process of using a mathematical algorithm against data to produce a numeric value that is representative of that data.
317. High Assurance Guard (HAG) An enclave boundary protection device that controls access between a local area network that an enterprise system has a requirement to protect, and an…
318. High Impact System An information system in which at least one security objective (i.e., confidentiality, integrity, or availability) is assigned a FIPS 199 potential impact…
319. Honey Pot In our context, it is also known as a “spam trap”. We have thousands of domains which accept all email sent to them, with the express purpose of…
320. Honeypot A host that is designed to collect data on suspicious activity and has no authorized users other than its administrators.
321. hot site An alternate facility that has the equipment and resources to immediately recover the business functions affected by the occurrence of a disaster See also…
322. ICE (Iris Challenge Evaluation) A large-scale development and independent technology evaluation activity for iris recognition systems sponsored by the U.S. Government in 2005.
323. Identification The process of verifying the identity of a user, process, or device, usually as a prerequisite for granting access to resources in an IT system.
324. Identification Rate The rate at which an individual in a database is correctly identified.
325. identifier A programmer-defined name for a variable, method, class or interface.
326. Identity The topological overlay of a coverage (input) with a polygon coverage (identity).
327. Identity Binding Binding of the vetted claimed identity to the individual (through biometrics) according to the issuing authority.
328. Identity Governance The combination of policies and actions taken to ensure enterprise-wide consistency, privacy protection and appropriate interoperability between…
329. Identity Management The ability to encrypt user credentials in a secure store.
330. Identity Proofing The process by which a Credentials Service Provider (CSP) and a Registration Authority (RA) validate sufficient information to uniquely identify a person.
331. Identity Registration The process of making a persons identity known to the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) system, associating a unique identifier with that identity, and…
332. Identity Verification The process of affirming that a claimed identity is correct by comparing the offered claims of identity with previously proven information stored in the…
333. Identity-Based Security Policy A security policy based on the identities and/or attributes of the object (system resource) being accessed and of the subject (user, group of users…
334. IDS -- see Information Disclosure Statement
335. IDS Host-Based IDSs which operate on information collected from within an individual computer system.
336. IDS Network-Based IDSs which detect attacks by capturing and analyzing network packets. Listening on a network segment or switch, one network-based IDS can monitor the…
337. Image To image a hard drive is to make an identical copy of the hard drive, including empty sectors.
338. Impact The effect, influence, alteration, or imprint caused by an action.
339. Impostor A person who submits a biometric sample in either an intentional or inadvertent attempt to claim the identity of another person to a biometric system.
340. Inappropriate Usage A person who violates acceptable computing use policies.
341. Incident A violation or imminent threat of violation of computer security policies, acceptable use policies, or standard computer security practices.
342. Incident Handling The mitigation of violations of security policies and recommended practices.
343. Incident management Executing a defensive response when a network’s security is threatened.
344. Incident Response Plan The documentation of a predetermined set of instructions or procedures to detect, respond to, and limit consequences of a malicious cyber attacks against…
345. INCITS (International Committee for Information Technology Standards) Organization that promotes the effective use of information and communication technology through standardization in a way that balances the interests of…
346. Inculpatory Evidence Evidence which tends to show the defendant’s guilt.
347. Indication In medicine, a sign, symptom, or medical condition that leads to the recommendation of a treatment, test, or procedure.
348. Indifferent User An individual who knows his/her biometric sample is being collected and does not attempt to help or hinder the collection of the sample.
349. Individual An object or instance of a class.
350. Information Accusatory document, filed by a prosecutor, detailing misdemeanor charges against a party.
351. Information Assurance Measures that protect and defend information and information systems by ensuring their availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and…
352. Information Owner Official with statutory or operational authority for specified information and responsibility for establishing the controls for its generation…
353. Information Resources Information and related resources, such as personnel, equipment, funds, and information technology.
354. Information Security The protection of information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction in order to…
355. Information Security Policy Aggregate of directives, regulations, rules, and practices that prescribes how an organization manages, protects, and distributes information.
356. Information Sharing The requirements for information sharing by an IT system with one or more other IT systems or applications, for information sharing to support multiple…
357. information system A system which provides input, storage, processing, communications, output, and control functions in relation to information and data.
358. Information System Owner Official responsible for the overall procurement, development, integration, modification, or operation and maintenance of an information system.
359. Information System Owner (or Program Manager) Official responsible for the overall procurement, development, integration, modification, or operation and maintenance of an information system.
360. Information System Security Officer (ISSO) Individual assigned responsibility by the senior agency information security officer, authorizing official, management official, or information system…
361. Information Technology Any equipment or interconnected system or subsystem of equipment that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement…
362. Information Type A specific category of information (e.g., privacy, medical, proprietary, financial, investigative, contractor sensitive, security management), defined by…
363. Infrared The range of invisible radiation wavelengths from about 700 nm, just longer than red in the visible spectrum, to 1 mm, on the border of the microwave…
364. Ingress Filtering The process of blocking incoming packets that use obviously false IP addresses, such as reserved source addresses.
365. Initialization Vector (IV) A vector used in defining the starting point of an encryption process within a cryptographic algorithm.
366. Initiator The entity that initiates an authentication exchange.
367. Inside Threat An entity with authorized access that has the potential to harm an information system through destruction, disclosure, modification of data, and/or denial…
368. Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) The FBI's large-scale ten fingerprint (open-set) identification system that is used for criminal history background checks and identification of latent…
369. Integrity Guarding against improper information modification or destruction, and includes ensuring information non-repudiation and authenticity.
370. Intellectual Property Creations of the mind - creative works or ideas embodied in a form that can be shared or can enable others to recreate, emulate, or manufacture them.
371. Interconnection Security Agreement (ISA) An agreement established between the organizations that own and operate connected IT systems to document the technical requirements of the interconnection.
372. Interconnection, System SEE System Interconnection
373. Intermediate Certification Authority (CA) A Certification Authority that is subordinate to another CA, and has a CA subordinate to itself.
374. Interoperability The ability of systems, units, or forces to provide services to or accept services from other systems, units, or forces and to use the services so…
375. Intrusion Detection System (IDS) Software that looks for suspicious activity and alerts administrators.
376. Intrusion Prevention Systems Systems which can detect an intrusive activity and can also attempt to stop the activity, ideally before it reaches its targets.
377. Inverse Cipher Series of transformations that converts ciphertext to plaintext using the Cipher Key.
378. IP Address A string of four numbers separated by periods used to represent a computer on the Internet.
379. IP Security (IPsec) An Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standard, Request For Comments (RFC) 2411, protocol that provides security capabilities at the…
380. Iris Recognition A biometric modality that uses an image of the physical structure of an individual's iris for recognition purposes, as illustrated below.
381. IrisCode© A biometric feature format used in the Daugman iris recognition system.
382. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) A non-governmental network of the national standards institutes from 151 countries.
383. IT Security Architecture A description of security principles and an overall approach for complying with the principles that drive the system design; i.e.
384. IT Security Awareness The purpose of awareness presentations is simply to focus attention on security.
385. IT Security Awareness and Training Program Explains proper rules of behavior for the use of agency IT systems and information.
386. IT Security Education IT Security Education seeks to integrate all of the security skills and competencies of the various functional specialties into a common body of…
387. IT Security Goal The five security goals are confidentiality, availability, integrity, accountability, and assurance.
388. IT Security Investment An IT application or system that is solely devoted to security. For instance, intrusion detection systems (IDS) and public key infrastructure (PKI) are…
389. IT Security Metrics Metrics based on IT security performance goals and objectives.
390. IT Security Policy The documentation of IT security decisions in an organization. NIST SP 800-12 categorizes IT Security Policy into three basic types: 1) Program…
391. IT Security Training IT Security Training strives to produce relevant and needed security skills and competencies by practitioners of functional specialties other than IT…
392. IT-Related Risk The net mission/business impact considering 1) the likelihood that a particular threat source will exploit, or trigger, a particular information system…
393. Kerberos A security system that authenticates users. Kerberos doesn’t provide authorization to services or databases; it establishes identity at logon, which is…
394. key A block, often used in a series, which projects beyond the edge of the enframement of an opening and is joined with the surrounding masonry.
395. Key Bundle The three cryptographic keys (Key1, Key2, Key3) that are used with a Triple Data Encryption Algorithm mode.
396. Key Escrow A deposit of the private key of a subscriber and other pertinent information pursuant to an escrow agreement or similar contract binding upon the…
397. Key Escrow System A system that entrusts the two components comprising a cryptographic key (e.g., a device unique key) to two key component holders (also called "escrow…
398. Key Establishment The process by which cryptographic keys are securely distributed among cryptographic modules using manual transport methods (e.g.
399. Key Exchange The process of exchanging public keys in order to establish secure communications.
400. Key Expansion Routine used to generate a series of Round Keys from the Cipher Key.