CompTIA Security+ SY0-601 Acronyms

The following is a list of acronyms that appear on the CompTIA Security+ SY0-601 certification exam. Candidates are encouraged to review the complete list and attain a working knowledge of all listed acronyms as part of a comprehensive exam preparation program.

3DES: Triple Data Encryption Standard

AAA: Authentication, Authorization, & Accounting
ABAC: Attribute-Based Access Control
ACL: Access Control List
AD: Active Directory
AES: Advanced Encryption Standard
AES256: Advanced Encryption Standard 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
ASP: Active Server Pages
ATT&CK: Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, & 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 Partnership Agreement
BPDU: Bridge Protocol Data Unit
BSSID: Basic Service Set Identifier
BYOD: Bring Your Own Device

CA: Certificate Authority
CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers & Humans Apart
CAR: Corrective Action Report
CASB: Cloud Access Security Broker
CBC: Cipher Block Chaining
CBT: Computer-Based Training
CCMP: Counter-Mode/CBC-MAC Protocol
CCTV: Closed-Circuit Television
CERT: Computer Emergency Response Team
CFB: Cipher Feedback
CHAP: Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol
CIO: Chief Information Officer
CIRT: Computer Incident Response Team
CIS: Center for Internet Security
CMS: Content Management System
CN: Common Name
COOP: Continuity of Operations Planning
COPE: Corporate-Owned Personally Enabled
CP: Contingency Planning
CRC: Cyclic Redundancy Check
CRL: Certificate Revocation List
CSA: Cloud Security Alliance
CSIRT: Computer Security Incident Response Team
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 Vulnerabilities & Exposures
CVSS: Common Vulnerabilities Scoring System
CYOD: Choose Your Own Device

DAC: Discretionary Access Control
DBA: Database Administrator
DDoS: Distributed Denial-of-Service
DEP: Data Execution Prevention
DER: Distinguished Encoding Rules
DES: Data Encryption Standard
DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DHE: Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral
DKIM: Domain Keys Identified Mail
DLL: Dynamic-Link Library
DLP: Data Loss Prevention
DMARC: Domain Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance
DNAT: Destination Network Address Translation
DNS: Domain Name System
DNSSEC: Domain Name System Security Extensions
DoS: Denial-of-Service
DPO: Data Protection 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 & Reponse
EFS: Encrypted File System
EIP: Extended Instruction Pointer
EOL: End of Life
EOS: End of Service
ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning
ESN: Electronic Serial Number
ESP: Encapsulating Security Payload
ESSID: Extending Service Set Identifier

FACL: File System Access Control List
FDE: Full Disk Encryption
FIM: File Integrity Monitoring
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
GPG: 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: Hash-based Message Authentication Code
HOTP: HMAC-based One-Time Password
HSM: Hardware Security Module
HSMaaS: Hardware Security Module as a Service
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol
HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
HVAC: Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning

IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service
IAM: Identity & 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 & Electronics Engineers
IKE: Internet Key Exchange
IM: Instant Message
IMAP4: Internet Message Access Protocol v4
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
ISA: Interconnection Security Agreement
ISFW: Internal Segmentation Firewall
ISO: International Organization for Standardization
ISP: Internet Service Provider
ISSO: Information Systems Security Officer
ITCP: IT Contingency Plan
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: Media Access Control
MAM: Mobile Application Management
MAN: Metropolitan Area Network
MBR: Master Boot Record
MD5: Message Digest 5
MDF: Main Distribution Frame
MDM: Mobile Device Management
MFP: Multifunction Printer
ML: Machine Learning
MMS: Multimedia Message Service
MOA: Memorandum of Agreement
MOU: Memorandum of Understanding
MPLS: Multiprotocol Label Switching
MSA: Measurement Systems Analysis
MS-CHAP: 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 Repair
MTU: Maximum Transmission Unit

NAC: Network Access Control
NAS: Network-Attached Storage
NAT: Network Address Translation
NDA: Non-Disclosure Agreement
NFC: Near-Field Communication
NFV: Network Function Virtualization
NGFW: Next-Generation Firewall
NG-SWG: Next-Generation Secure Web Gateway
NIC: Network Interface Card
NIDS: Network-based Intrusion Detection System
NIPS: Network-based Intrusion Prevention System
NIST: National Institute of Standards & Technology
NOC: Network Operations Center
NTFS: New Technology File System
NTLM: New Technology LAN Manager
NTP: Network Time Protocol

OCSP: Online Certificate Status Protocol
OID: Object Identifier
OS: Operating System
OSI: Open Systems Interconnection
OSINT: Open-Source Intelligence
OSPF: Open Shortest Path First
OT: Operational Technology
OTA: Over-The-Air
OTG: On-The-Go
OVAL: Open Vulnerability & Assessment Language
OWASP: Open Web Application Security Project

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
PE: Portable Executable
PEAP: Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol
PED: Portable Electronic Device
PEM: Privacy Enhanced Mail
PFS: Perfect Forward Secrecy
PGP: Pretty Good Privacy
PHI: Personal Health Information
PII: Personally Identifiable Information
PIN: Personal Identification Number
PIV: Personal Identity Verification
PKCS: Public Key Cryptography Standards
PKI: Public Key Infrastructure
PoC: Proof of Concept
POP: Post Office Protocol
POTS: Plain Old Telephone Service
PPP: Point-to-Point Protocol
PPTP: Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol
PSK: Preshared Key
PTZ: Pan-Tilt-Zoom
PUP: Potentially Unwanted Program

QA: Quality Assurance
QoS: Quality of Service

RA: Registration Authority
RAD: Rapid Application Development
RADIUS: Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service
RAM: Random Access Memory
RAS: Remote Access Server
RAT: Remote Access Trojan
RC4: Rivest Cipher v4
RCS: Rich Communication Services
RFC: Request for Comments
RFID: Radio Frequency Identification
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

S/MIME: Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
SaaS: Software as a Service
SAE: Simultaneous Authentication of Equals
SAML: Security Assertions Markup Language
SCADA: Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
SCAP: Security Content Automation Protocol
SCEP: Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol
SDK: Software Development Kit
SDLC: Software Development Life Cycle
SDLM: Software Development Life-Cycle Methodology
SDN: Software-Defined Networking
SDP: Service Delivery Platform
SDV: Software-Defined Visibility
SED: Self-Encrypting Drives
SEH: Structured Exception Handling
SFTP: SSH File Transfer Protocol
SHA: Secure Hashing Algorithm
SIEM: Security Information & Event Management
SIM: Subscriber Identity Module
SIP: Session Initiation Protocol
SLA: Service-Level Agreement
SLE: Single Loss Expectancy
SMB: Server Message Block
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: Security Operations Center
SPF: Sender Policy Framework
SPIM: Spam over Instant Messaging
SQL: Structured Query Language
SQLi: SQL Injection
SRTP: Secure Real-time Transport Protocol
SSD: Solid State Drive
SSH: Secure Shell
SSID: Service Set Identifier
SSL: Secure Sockets Layer
SSO: Single Sign-On
STIX: Structured Threat Information eXpression
STP: Shielded Twisted Pair
SWG: Secure Web Gateway

TACACS+: Terminal Access Controller Access Control System
TAXII: Thrusted Automated eXchange of Intelligence Information
TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
TGT: Ticket Granting Ticket
TKIP: Temporal Key Integrity Protocol
TLS: Transport Layer Security
TOTP: Time-based One-Time Password
TPM: Trusted Platform Module
TSIG: Transaction Signature
TTP: Tactics, Techniques, & Procedures

UAT: User Acceptance Testing
UDP: User Datagram Protocol
UEBA: User & Entity Behavior Analytics
UEFI: Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
UEM: Unified Endpoint Management
UPS: Uninterruptible 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 for Applications
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
WORM: Write Once Read Many
WPA: WiFi Protected Access
WPS: WiFi Protected Setup

XaaS: Anything as a Service
XML: Extensible Markup Language
XOR: Exclusive OR
XSRF: Cross-Site Request Forgery
XSS: Cross-Site Scripting