Glossary
May 24, 2026
Cisco CCST Cybersecurity glossary for entry cybersecurity terms, controls, network defense, endpoint security, vulnerability risk, and incidents.
Core terms
| Term |
Meaning |
| CIA triad |
confidentiality, integrity, and availability |
| Authentication |
proving identity |
| Authorization |
granting allowed actions |
| Least privilege |
only the access required for the role or task |
| Vulnerability |
weakness that could be exploited |
| Threat |
actor, event, or condition that could cause harm |
| Risk |
likelihood and impact of harm |
| Remediation |
fixing or removing a weakness |
| Mitigation |
reducing risk when full fix is not immediate |
| Firewall |
traffic-filtering control |
| IDS |
intrusion detection system |
| IPS |
intrusion prevention system |
| SIEM |
tool/platform for collecting and correlating security events |
| EDR |
endpoint detection and response |
| Malware |
malicious software |
| Phishing |
deceptive message intended to steal information or trigger unsafe action |
| CVE |
public identifier for a known vulnerability |
| CVSS |
scoring system for vulnerability severity |
Confusion pairs
| Pair |
Keep separate |
| authentication vs authorization |
identity proof vs allowed action |
| IDS vs IPS |
detection vs prevention/blocking |
| remediation vs mitigation |
fix vs risk reduction |
| vulnerability vs exploit |
weakness vs method using the weakness |
| alert vs incident |
signal vs validated security event requiring response |
| encryption vs hashing |
protect readable data vs one-way fingerprint/integrity use |
Revised on Monday, June 15, 2026