Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Glossary of Key Information Security Terms

Published

Author(s)

Richard L. Kissel

Abstract

This glossary of key information security terms has been extracted from NIST Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), Special Publication (SP) 800 series, NIST Interagency Report (NIST IR) series, and the Committee for National Security Systems Instruction (CNSSI) 4009 (Information Assurance Glossary). The terms included are not all inclusive of terms found in these publications, but are a subset of those most frequently used. The purpose of this glossary is to provide a central resource of definitions most commonly used in NIST and CNSS publications. Each entry in the glossary points to one or more source NIST or CNSS publications, and in addition, other supplemental sources where appropriate. As we are continually refreshing out publication site, terms included in the glossary come from out more recent publications.
Citation
NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 7298 Rev. 1
Report Number
7298 Rev. 1

Keywords

computer security, glossary, information assurance, information security, IT security

Citation

Kissel, R. (2011), Glossary of Key Information Security Terms, NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.7298r1 (Accessed December 15, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created February 17, 2011, Updated July 16, 2019