Information security - The practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks
Vulnerability - A weakness which can be exploited by a threat actor
Threat - A potential negative action or event facilitated by a vulnerability
Shared Responsibility Model - A security and compliance framework that outlines the responsibilities of cloud service providers (CSPs) and customers for securing every aspect of the cloud environment
Malware - Any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network
Ransomware - A type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid
Social engineering - The psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information
Phishing - A type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information
Business Email Compromise (BEC) - A type of phishing attack in which an attacker impersonates a high-level executive and attempts to trick an employee or customer into transferring money or sensitive data
Infostealer - A type of Trojan horse designed to gather information from a system
Mirai (malware) - A malware that turns networked devices running Linux into remotely controlled bots that can be used as part of a botnet in large-scale network attacks
Think before you Click(Fix) - A social engineering technique that tricks users into running malicious commands on their devices by taking advantage of their target's tendency to solve minor technical issues
Attack Simulation Tools
Evilginx - A man-in-the-middle attack framework used for phishing login credentials along with session cookies
Zero trust security model - An approach to the design and implementation of IT systems where trust is never granted implicitly and verification is required for everyone
Mutual authentication - A process in which both parties in a communications link authenticate each other
Control-flow integrity - A general term for computer security techniques that prevent a wide variety of malware attacks from redirecting the flow of execution of a program
Capture the flag (cybersecurity) - A hacking contest where participants use specialized knowledge and techniques to find hidden "Flags" (answers) and compete for the highest total score
Platforms
CTFd - The easiest Capture The Flag platform to host your own cyber security workshop, providing a rock solid base that is easily customizable with themes and plugins
Symmetric-key algorithm - Algorithms for cryptography that use the same cryptographic keys for both the encryption of plaintext and the decryption of ciphertext
Block Cipher
AES - A specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001
Salsa20 ChaCha - A variant of Salsa20 that increases the diffusion per round while achieving the same or slightly better performance
MAC (Message Authentication Code)
HMAC - A specific type of message authentication code (MAC) involving a cryptographic hash function and a secret cryptographic key
Modes of Operation
CBC (Cipher block chaining) - A mode of operation for a block cipher where a block of plaintext is XORed with the previous ciphertext block before being encrypted
GCM (Galois/Counter Mode) - A mode of operation for symmetric-key cryptographic block ciphers which is widely adopted for its performance
CCM - A mode of operation for cryptographic block ciphers designed to provide both authentication and confidentiality
Elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman - A key agreement protocol that allows two parties to establish a shared secret over an insecure channel
Encryption Schemes
RSAES-PKCS1-v1_5 - An older Encryption/decryption Scheme (ES) was first standardized in version 1.5 of PKCS #1 and is known to be vulnerable
RSAES-OAEP - A padding scheme that enhances RSA encryption by adding randomness and preventing partial decryption, it was standardized in PKCS#1 v2 and RFC 2437
Signature Schemes
RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 - A Signature Scheme with Appendix (SSA) was first standardized in version 1.5 of PKCS #1 and is considered unforgeable according to Jager et al. (2018)
DSA - A public-key cryptosystem and Federal Information Processing Standard for digital signatures, it is based on the mathematical concept of modular exponentiation and the discrete logarithm problem
ECDSA - A variant of the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) that utilizes elliptic-curve cryptography
Key formats
PKCS #1: RSA Cryptography Specifications - A standard that provides the basic definitions of and recommendations for implementing the RSA algorithm for public-key cryptography
Cryptographic Message Syntax - The IETF's standard for cryptographically protected messages, used by cryptographic schemes and protocols to digitally sign, digest, authenticate, or encrypt any form of digital data
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) - A set of roles, policies, hardware, software and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store and revoke digital certificates
Domain Control Validation - A process used by certificate authorities (CAs) to verify that the person or organization requesting a certificate has control over the domain(s) listed in the certificate
Trust Stores
Certifi - A carefully curated collection of Root Certificates for validating the trustworthiness of SSL certificates while verifying the identity of TLS hosts
Public key certificate - An electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key
Domain Validated (DV)
Organization Validated (OV)
Extended Validation (EV)
Let's Encrypt - A nonprofit Certificate Authority providing TLS certificates
certbot - A free, open source software tool for automatically using Let's Encrypt certificates on manually-administrated websites to enable HTTPS
lego - A Let's Encrypt client and ACME library written in Go
Vault - A tool for securely accessing secrets like API keys, passwords, or certificates
SOPS - An editor of encrypted files that supports YAML, JSON, ENV, INI and BINARY formats
git-secret - A bash tool to store your private data inside a git repo
Kubernetes Ecosystem
Sealed Secrets - A Kubernetes controller and tool for one-way encrypted Secrets
Secrets Store CSI Driver - A driver that allows Kubernetes to mount multiple secrets, keys, and certs stored in enterprise-grade external secrets stores into pods as a volume
External Secrets Operator - A Kubernetes operator that integrates external secret management systems like AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, Google Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, and IBM Cloud Secrets Manager
Vendor Services
Azure Key Vault - A cloud service to safeguard cryptographic keys and other secrets used by cloud apps and services
Google Cloud Secret Manager - A secure and convenient storage system for API keys, passwords, certificates, and other sensitive data
AWS Key Management Service - A service that makes it easy for you to create and manage cryptographic keys
AWS Secrets Manager - A secrets management service that helps you protect access to your applications, services, and IT resources
age - A simple, modern and secure file encryption tool, format, and Go library
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) - A data encryption and decryption computer program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication
OpenPGP - A non-proprietary protocol for exchanging public keys and encrypted messages
Identity management - A framework of policies and technologies for ensuring that the proper people in an enterprise have the appropriate access to technology resources
Self-hosted IAM Platforms
FusionAuth CE - The self-hosted, community supported version of FusionAuth
KeyCloak - An open source identity and access management solution
FreeIPA - An integrated security information management solution combining Linux, 389 Directory Server, MIT Kerberos, NTP, DNS, and a certificate system
Cloud IAM Services
Microsoft Entra ID - A cloud-based identity and access management service
AWS IAM - A service that helps you securely control access to AWS resources
Amazon Cognito - A service that lets you add user sign-up, sign-in, and access control to your web and mobile apps
Auth0 - A flexible, drop-in solution to add authentication and authorization services to your applications
Directory service - A service that maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses
LDAP - An open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory information services
OpenLDAP - An open source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
389 Directory Server - A free and open source software project developed by Red Hat for Linux systems
Single sign-on (SSO) - A service that allows one login for multiple applications
Protocols & Standards
OpenID Connect - A simple identity layer on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol
SAML - A standard for logging users into applications
WS-Federation - A specification that defines mechanisms used to broker trust and manage identities, attributes and authentication between participating Web services
FIDO2 (WebAuthn, CTAP, Passkeys) - A set of specifications that enables users to leverage common devices to easily and securely authenticate to online services
Relying party - The website or online service that wants to verify a user's identity (e.g., your bank's website)
Authenticator - The device or software that securely stores cryptographic keys and performs authentication for the user.
Client - The software on the user's device, typically a web browser or operating system component, that communicates between the Relying Party and the Authenticator.
WebAuthn - An API for accessing Public Key Credentials
CTAP - A protocol that enables an external authenticator to communicate with a client platform
Passkeys - A phishing-resistant replacement for passwords
SPIFFE - The Secure Production Identity Framework for Everyone
Kerberos - A computer network authentication protocol that works on the basis of tickets
Credentials & Tokens
Basic authentication - A method for an HTTP user agent to provide a username and password when making a request
JSON Web Token (JWT) - An Internet standard for creating data with optional signature and/or optional encryption whose payload holds JSON that asserts some number of claims
Application Default Credentials (ADC) - A mechanism used by Google Cloud client libraries to automatically find credentials based on the application environment
Resource owner - the user who owns the data or resources that are being accessed
Resource server - the server that hosts the protected resources
Client - an application or service that wants to access the resources on behalf of the resource owner
Authorization server - the server that issues access tokens to the client
Platforms & Tools
Permify - An open-source authorization service that helps you to create any kind of authorization system with its Golang API
Azure Shared Access Signature (SAS) - A signed URI that points to one or more storage resources and includes a token that specifies the permissions and interval of access
Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) - A software development process that helps developers build more secure software and address security compliance requirements while reducing development cost
MISRA C - A set of guidelines for the use of the C programming language in safety-critical embedded systems, originally developed for the automotive industry
CERT Secure Coding Standards - A collection of programming security guidelines for C, C++, Java, Perl, and other languages published by Carnegie Mellon's CERT
SonarQube Server - A self-managed, automatic code review tool that systematically helps you deliver clean code
GitLab SAST - A tool that checks your source code for known vulnerabilities
Bandit (for Python) - A tool designed to find common security issues in Python code
Semgrep OSS - A fast, open-source, static analysis tool for finding bugs and enforcing code standards
Fluid attacks - A security tool that allows you to find vulnerabilities in your source code, containers and dependencies
Dynamic Analysis (DAST)
ZAP - The world's most widely used web app scanner, free and open source, and a community based GitHub Top 1000 project that anyone can contribute to
Nuclei - A fast and customizable vulnerability scanner powered by the global security community and built on a simple YAML-based DSL
sqlmap - An open source penetration testing tool that automates the process of detecting and exploiting SQL injection flaws and taking over of database servers
Gitleaks - A SAST tool for detecting and preventing hardcoded secrets like passwords, api keys, and tokens in git repos
secretlint - A pluggable linting tool to prevent committing credentials
Talisman - A tool that installs a hook to your repository to ensure that potential secrets or sensitive information do not get committed
TruffleHog - A tool that scans your environment for secrets, digging deep into commit history and branches
Whispers - A static code analysis tool designed for parsing various common data formats in search of hardcoded credentials
AI-orchestrated Penetration Testing
PentestGPT - An automated penetration testing framework powered by Large Language Models (LLMs)
PentAGI - An open-source, fully autonomous AI agent system designed for automated security testing
Strix - A set of autonomous AI agents that act like real hackers to run code dynamically, find vulnerabilities, and validate them through actual proof-of-concepts
CAI - A lightweight, open-source framework that empowers security professionals to build and deploy AI-powered offensive and defensive automation
HexStrike AI - An advanced MCP server that lets AI agents autonomously run 150+ cybersecurity tools for automated pentesting, vulnerability discovery, bug bounty automation, and security research
Zen AI Pentest - An autonomous, AI-powered penetration testing framework that combines cutting-edge language models with professional security tools
JFrog Xray - An application security tool that identifies vulnerabilities and license compliance issues across the software supply chain
License & Dependency Analysis
Feluda - A blazing fast dependency graph generator for Python projects
Frameworks & Assessment
SLSA framework - A security framework of standards and controls to prevent tampering, improve integrity, and secure packages and infrastructure
in-toto - A framework to protect software supply chain integrity
OpenSSF Scorecard - An automated tool that assesses a number of important heuristics ("checks") associated with software security and assigns each check a score of 0-10
Provenance & Artifact Metadata
GUAC - An open source tool that aggregates software security metadata into a high fidelity graph database
Secure Distribution & Updates
The Update Framework (TUF) - A framework for securing software update systems, providing protection even against attackers that compromise the repository or signing keys
Code Signing & Integrity
Sigstore (Fulcio, Rekor, Cosign) - A new standard for signing, verifying and protecting software
The 4 Cs of Cloud-Native Systems - A defense-in-depth approach that divides security strategies into four distinct layers to provide multilayered protection for cloud-native applications
Microsoft Defender for Cloud - A cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) with a set of security measures and practices designed to protect cloud-based applications
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
AWS Security Hub - A cloud security posture management (CSPM) service that performs security best practice checks, aggregates alerts, and enables automated remediation
cnquery - A cloud-native, graph-based security tool that allows you to query your entire infrastructure as data
Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)
Amazon Inspector - An automated security assessment service that helps improve the security and compliance of applications deployed on AWS
Managed detection and response (MDR) - An outsourced service that provides organizations with threat hunting services and responds to threats once they are discovered
Microsoft Sentinel - A scalable, cloud-native, security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solution
Amazon GuardDuty - A threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behavior
Detections & Auditing
Sigma Detection Format - A generic and open signature format that allows you to describe relevant log events in a straightforward manner
AWS CloudTrail - An AWS service that helps you enable operational and risk auditing, governance, and compliance of your AWS account
AWS Config - A service that enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your AWS resources
Computer security incident management - The monitoring and detection of security events on a computer or computer network, and the execution of proper responses to those events
Digital forensics - A branch of forensic science that involves the recovery, investigation, examination, and analysis of material found in digital devices, often in relation to mobile devices and computer crime
Computer forensics - A branch of digital forensic science pertaining to evidence found in computers and digital storage media
Tools & Platforms
Volatility - The world's most widely used framework for extracting digital artifacts from volatile memory (RAM) samples
Autopsy - A digital forensics platform and graphical interface to The Sleuth Kit and other digital forensics tools
CSP (Content Security Policy) - An added layer of security that helps to detect and mitigate certain types of attacks, including Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and data injection attacks
HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) - A web security policy mechanism that helps to protect websites against protocol downgrade attacks and cookie hijacking
Cross-origin isolation - A web security feature that allows a web page to use powerful features like SharedArrayBuffer and performance.measureUserAgentSpecificMemory()
Common Vulnerabilities & Attacks
Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) - A type of malicious exploit of a website where unauthorized commands are submitted from a user that the web application trusts
DNS rebinding - A type of attack that allows a malicious web page to bypass the same-origin policy by exploiting the Domain Name System
SSRF (Server-side request forgery) - A type of exploit where an attacker can abuse the functionality on the server to read or modify internal resources
Privacy & Transparency
Privacy sandbox - Google's initiative to create web technologies that protect people's privacy online and give companies and developers the tools to build thriving digital businesses
security.txt - A proposed standard which allows websites to define security policies for researchers
AWS WAF - A web application firewall that helps protect your web applications or APIs against common web exploits and bots
Azure Web Application Firewall - A cloud-native service that protects web apps from common web-hacking techniques and vulnerabilities
Network-level Protection
AWS Shield - A managed Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service that safeguards applications running on AWS
Azure DDoS Protection - A service that provides countermeasures against the most sophisticated DDoS threats
Fail2ban - An intrusion prevention software framework that protects computer servers from brute-force attacks
Snort (IPS) - The foremost Open Source Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) in the world
Host-based Firewalls
netfilter (iptables, nftables) - A framework inside the Linux kernel that enables packet filtering, network address translation, and other packet mangling
S/MIME - A standard provides cryptographic security services like authentication, message integrity, non-repudiation, privacy, and data security for electronic messaging applications
DNS Security
DNSSEC - A feature of the Domain Name System (DNS) that authenticates responses to domain name lookups
DNS over TLS (DoT) - A security protocol for encrypting and wrapping Domain Name System (DNS) queries and answers via the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol
DNS over HTTPS (DoH) - A protocol for performing remote Domain Name System (DNS) resolution via the HTTPS protocol
Tools & Libraries
OpenDKIM - A community effort develops and maintains a C library for producing DomainKeys Identified Mail-aware applications and an open-source milter for providing the service
Unity Catalog - A universal catalog for data and AI that provides interoperability, openness, and unified governance across various formats and platforms
Microsoft Purview - A unified approach to help organizations secure and govern data across their heterogeneous data estate
Amazon DataZone - A data management service that makes it faster and easier for customers to catalog, discover, share, and govern data stored across AWS, on premises, and third-party sources
Cyber Resilience Act - A regulation that aims to safeguard consumers and businesses buying or using products or software with a digital component by introducing mandatory cybersecurity requirements
Security & Privacy Frameworks
NIST SP 800-53 - A catalog of security and privacy controls for all U.S. federal information systems except those related to national security
OSCAL - The Open Security Controls Assessment Language, a NIST-led initiative that provides open, machine-readable formats (XML, JSON, YAML) to automate security and compliance processes
ISO/IEC 27001 / 27002 - The international standard for information security management systems
Industry & Audit Standards
PCI-DSS - The global standard for payment card data security
SOC 2 - A voluntary compliance standard for service organizations which specifies how organizations should manage customer data
FIPS 140-2 - A U.S. government computer security standard used to approve cryptographic modules
Bug bounty program - A monetary reward given to ethical hackers for successfully discovering and reporting a vulnerability or bug to the application's developer
Address space layout randomization (ASLR) - A computer security technique involved in memory protection that prevents exploitation of memory vulnerabilities by randomly arranging the address space positions of key data areas of a process
W^X - A security feature that ensures that every page in a process's address space is either writable or executable, but not both
TPM (Trusted Platform Module) - A specification for a secure cryptoprocessor, a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware through integrated cryptographic keys
Linux Mandatory Access Control
SELinux - A set of kernel modifications and user-space tools that have been added to various Linux distributions
AppArmor - A Linux kernel security module that allows the system administrator to restrict programs' capabilities with per-program profiles
bubblewrap - A low-level unprivileged sandboxing tool used by Flatpak and similar projects
Linux Fine-grained Access Control
Linux capabilities - A feature that grants some of the power of the superuser to a process, while not granting all of them
General Scanning
OpenSCAP - An open source implementation of the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP)
Lynis - A security auditing tool for systems running Linux, macOS, or Unix-based operating system