Plain English glossary
The terms you will meet in a security conversation, explained the way we would explain them to you. If a provider uses a word here without explaining it, ask them to.
Business email compromise
An attacker uses a real, working email account, often at a supplier, to send a genuine looking request, most commonly a change of banking details. Nothing about it is technically fake, which is why ordinary email filtering does not catch it.
Dark web monitoring
A continuous search of the places where stolen and leaked data is traded, looking for your company domain, staff email addresses and passwords. It warns you that something has already escaped. It cannot remove it.
Disaster recovery
The tested plan for getting a business working again after a serious failure. It includes the data but also the systems, the order things come back in, who does what, and how long it takes. A backup on its own is not a disaster recovery plan.
Endpoint
Any device a person works on: a laptop, a desktop, a server, a phone. The word is industry shorthand and we avoid it on ordinary pages, because most people do not use it.
Endpoint detection and response
Protection on a device that recognises an attack by how it behaves rather than by matching it against a list of known viruses. It is what catches attacks nobody has seen before, including most ransomware.
Immutable backup
A backup copy that cannot be changed or deleted for a set period, by anybody, including an administrator. It exists because modern ransomware looks for backups and destroys them first.
Information Officer
The person legally responsible for POPIA compliance in an organisation. By default it is the head of the business unless somebody else is registered with the Information Regulator.
Multi-factor authentication
A second proof of identity beyond a password, usually a prompt on a phone. It is one of the highest value controls available, and it protects the sign in rather than everything that happens afterwards.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0
An internationally recognised structure that organises security work into six functions: Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover. It is a framework to work to, not a certification anybody can hold.
Penetration testing
A controlled, authorised attempt by a specialist to break into your systems the way an attacker would, to establish what somebody could actually reach.
Phishing
An email, message or fake website designed to trick somebody into revealing a password or approving a payment. Still the most common way an attack on a South African business begins.
POPIA
The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013. South African law governing how organisations handle personal information. Section 19 is the part that requires you to secure it.
Ransomware
Software that encrypts your files and demands payment to unlock them. Modern ransomware also steals the data first, so paying does not remove the exposure.
Segmentation
Dividing one flat network into separate zones so a device in one cannot freely reach everything in another. It is what stops one infected laptop reaching the accounting server.
Session hijacking
An attacker steals the token that proves you are already signed in, rather than your password. Because the session is already past the password and past multi-factor authentication, nothing asks it to prove anything again.
Vulnerability scanning
An automated, repeated check that lists known weaknesses across your systems, such as missing patches and unsupported software. It finds the unlocked doors. A penetration test shows what is behind one.
An IT audit,
and a free dark web scan.
Our specialists audit your network, computer systems, Microsoft 365 environment, cybersecurity controls and backups on site, then hand you a written report with a prioritised action plan. Every audit includes a free dark web exposure scan, run against your domain before anybody visits.
Worried about what it takes to move?
Changing IT provider is the single biggest reason businesses stay somewhere they have outgrown. We plan the move around your working week, and we help carry the cost of getting across. Ask us how that works when we speak.