9 Glossary of terms used

Here is a list of some of the terms used in the CertiKit Cyber Essentials Toolkit.

• Applicant: the organisation seeking certification, or sometimes the individual acting as the main point of contact, depending on context. • Boundary of scope: the whole of an applicant’s IT infrastructure, or a sub-set of it.

Either way, the boundary must be clearly defined in terms of the business unit managing it, the network boundary and the physical location. • Devices: includes all types of hosts, networking equipment, servers, networks and end-user equipment such as desktop computers, laptop computers, tablets and mobile phones (smartphones), whether physical or virtual. • Firewall: a device which restricts access to devices’ network services to reduce exposure to a cyber-attack. o A boundary firewall is a network device which can restrict the inbound and outbound network traffic to services on its network of computers and mobile devices. This is usually, though not always, a piece of software on the router. o Alternatively, a personal, or host-based, firewall may be configured on a computer, tablet or smartphone. This works in the same way as a boundary firewall but only protects the single device on which it is configured. This approach can provide for more tailored rules and means that they apply to the device wherever it is used. However, this increases the administrative overhead of managing firewall rules. • Malware: such as computer viruses, worms and spyware. This is software that has been written and distributed deliberately to perform malicious actions. Potential sources include email attachments, downloads and direct installation of unauthorised software. • Multi-factor authentication: an authentication method in which a computer user is granted access only after successfully presenting two or more pieces of evidence to an authentication mechanism: knowledge (something the user and only the user knows), possession (something the user and only the user has) and inherence (something the user and only the user is). Two-factor authentication (aka 2FA) is a type, or subset, of multi-factor authentication. • Patching: a set of changes to a computer program or its supporting data designed to update, fix, or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs. • Ransomware: a form of malware which makes data or systems it has infected unusable until the victim makes a payment. • Sandboxing: a security mechanism for separating running programs, usually in an effort to mitigate system failures or software vulnerabilities from spreading. • Software: includes operating systems, commercial off-the-shelf applications, plugins, interpreters, scripts, libraries, network software and firmware. • Virus: a type of malicious software that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. • Whitelisting: the practice of specifying an index of approved software applications that are permitted to be present and active on a computer system. The goal of