Acronyms cheatsheet

All the acronyms and abbreviations that we’ve seen so far:

Acronym	Definition
.msc	Microsoft Management Console extension (.msc)
.NET	Microsoft’s software development framework
A08	OWASP category: Software & Data Integrity Failures
ACK	Acknowledgment packet in TCP handshake
ACL	Access Control List
AES	Advanced Encryption Standard
AI	Artificial Intelligence
AMD-V	AMD Virtualization extensions
API	Application Programming Interface
API	Application Programming Interface
ARM	Advanced RISC Machine (CPU architecture)
ARP	Address Resolution Protocol – maps IP addresses to MAC addresses on a local network.
ART	Android Runtime
AS	Autonomous System – an independently administered network (or group of networks) on the Internet.
ASCII	American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASLR	Address Space Layout Randomization
AT&T	American Telephone & Telegraph (Unix origin)
AV	Antivirus
AWS	Amazon Web Services – Amazon’s cloud-computing platform.
Bash	Bourne Again SHell
BGP	Border Gateway Protocol – routing protocol used between Autonomous Systems on the Internet.
BIOS	Basic Input/Output System
BOLA	Broken Object Level Authorization
BSD	Berkeley Software Distribution
BSM	Basic Security Module (macOS auditing)
CAM (Windows Command Interpreter)	Content Addressable Memory – special memory in Switches used for fast lookup tables (e.g., MAC→Port).
CLI	Command-Line Interface
cp	copy
CPU	Central Processing Unit
CRUD	Create, Read, Update, Delete
CSMA/CA	Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance – medium-access method used in Wi-Fi.
CSMA/CD	Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection – classic Ethernet medium-access method.
CSP	Content Security Policy
CSRF	Cross-Site Request Forgery
CSV	Comma-Separated Values
CVE	Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures
DAC	Discretionary Access Control
DEC	Digital Equipment Corporation
DEP / NX	Data Execution Prevention / No-Execute (bit)
DEX	Dalvik Executable (Android bytecode format)
df	Disk Free
DH / Diffie–Hellman	Key exchange algorithm
DHCP	Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
dirb	Directory brute-forcer
DKIM	DomainKeys Identified Mail
DMA	Direct Memory Access
DMARC	Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance
DNS	Domain Name System – translates domain names (e.g., canvas.ru.is) to IP addresses.
DOM	Document Object Model
DoS	Denial of Service – attack that attempts to make a service or network unavailable.
du	Disk Usage
EC2	Elastic Compute Cloud
EGP	Exterior Gateway Protocol
EXIF	Exchangeable Image File Format – metadata embedded in image files (camera model, time, GPS, etc.).
F12	Browser developer tools keyboard shortcut
FHSS	Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum – radio technique that rapidly changes frequency to reduce interference.
FIM	File Integrity Monitoring
FTP	File Transfer Protocol
GDPR	General Data Protection Regulation
GenAI	Generative Artificial Intelligence
GET	HTTP GET method
GNU	“GNU’s Not Unix” (Unix-like userspace project)
GPU	Graphics Processing Unit
GraphQL	Graph Query Language
GUI	Graphical User Interface
HAL	Hardware Abstraction Layer
HITL	Human in the Loop
HMAC	Hash-based Message Authentication Code
HMI	Human-Machine Interface
HTML	HyperText Markup Language
HTTP	Hypertext Transfer Protocol – main application-level protocol of the web.
HTTPS	Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
I/O	Input/Output
IaaS	Infrastructure as a Service
ICMP	Internet Control Message Protocol
ICS	Industrial Control Systems
id	Identifier
IDOR	Insecure Direct Object References
IEEE	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IGP	Interior Gateway Protocol
IHL	Internet Header Length
IMAP	Internet Message Access Protocol
IP	Internet Protocol – network-layer protocol that delivers packets based on IP addresses.
IPC	Inter-Process Communication
IPv4	Internet Protocol version 4
ISP	Internet Service Provider – company that provides Internet connectivity.
ISR	Interrupt Service Routine
IT	Information Technology
IX	Internet Exchange – physical infrastructure where ISPs and networks exchange traffic.
IXP	Internet Exchange Point
JS	JavaScript
JSON	JavaScript Object Notation
JWT	JSON Web Token
KVM	Kernel-based Virtual Machine
LAN	Local Area Network – network covering a limited area (home, office, campus).
LLM	Large Language Model
MAC	Media Access Control (address) – hardware address of a network interface on a LAN.
Me (Windows Me)	Windows Millennium Edition
MFA	Multi-Factor Authentication
MMU	Memory Management Unit
MS-DOS	Microsoft Disk Operating System
MSP	Managed Service Provider
mv	move — moves files somewhere (kinda the same as Ctrl +X, Ctrl+V)
MX	Mail Exchange record (DNS record)
NAT	Network Address Translation – rewrites internal private IP addresses to public ones at a Router.
nb.	“number” (abbreviation appearing in slides)
nc	netcat (network utility)
NFC	Near Field Communication
NIC	Network Interface Card – hardware that connects a device to a network. (DEC minicomputer)
nmap	Network Mapper
NPM	Node Package Manager
NSE	nmap Scripting Engine
OAuth 2.0	Open Authorization 2.0
OS	Operating System
OSI	Open Systems Interconnection model
OSINT	Open Source Intelligence
OWASP	Open Web Application Security Project
OWASP ZAP	OWASP Zed Attack Proxy
P2P	Peer-to-Peer
PID	Process Identifier
PII	Personally Identifiable Information
POP3	Post Office Protocol version 3
POSIX	Portable Operating System Interface (Unix standard)
ps	process status
PS	PowerShell
PSTN	Public Switched Telephone Network – traditional circuit-switched telephone network.
pwd	Print Working Directory
pwd	Common abbreviation for “password”
PyPI	Python Package Index
QNX	Real-time microkernel OS
RAM	Random Access Memory
RCE	Remote Code Execution
REPL	Read-Eval-Print Loop
REST	Representational State Transfer
RF	Radio Frequency – part of the electromagnetic spectrum used for wireless communication.
RFID	Radio-Frequency Identification
RHEL	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
RLHF	Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback
rm	remove
RTOS	Real-Time Operating System
RTT	Round-Trip Time
sed	stream editor
SELinux	Security-Enhanced Linux
SFTP	SSH File Transfer Protocol
SHA-256	Secure Hash Algorithm 256-bit
SIM	Subscriber Identity Module – smart card in mobile devices that stores subscriber information.
SMB	Server Message Block
SMBGhost	SMBv3 vulnerability
SMS	Short Message Service – text-messaging service for mobile networks.
SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
SPF	Sender Policy Framework
SQL	Structured Query Language
SQLi	SQL Injection (implicit)
SSH	Secure Shell – protocol for secure remote login and command execution.
SSL	Secure Sockets Layer
SSN	Social Security Number
SSRF	Server-Side Request Forgery
STDIN	Standard Input
STDOUT	Standard Output
STUN	Session Traversal Utilities for NAT
sudo	“superuser do” (Unix privilege escalation tool)
SUID / SGID	Set User ID / Set Group ID
tar	Tape ARchive
TCB	Trusted Computing Base
TCP	Transmission Control Protocol
TCP SYN	Synchronize packet in TCP handshake
TCP/IP	Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol – core protocol suite of the Internet.
TLS	Transport Layer Security
TOCTOU	Time-Of-Check-To-Time-Of-Use (Race condition)
Tor	The Onion Router – anonymity network that routes traffic through multiple relays.
tr	translate
TTL	Time To Live
TTY	Teletype / Teletypewriter
UDP	User Datagram Protocol
UI	User Interface
UID	User ID
UPnP	Universal Plug and Play
URI	Uniform Resource Identifier
URL	Uniform Resource Locator – standard format for web addresses.
USB	Universal Serial Bus – standard for wired data connection and power between devices.
UTF-8	Unicode Transformation Format, 8-bit
UUID	Universally Unique Identifier
v12n	Abbreviation for “virtualization” (v + 12 letters + n), similar to i18n/l10n
VDI	Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
VM	Virtual Machine – software emulation of a physical computer.
VMM	Virtual Machine Monitor (a.k.a. Hypervisor)
VoIP	Voice over IP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
VPN	Virtual Private Network – encrypted tunnel through another network (often to hide or protect traffic).
VT-x	Intel Virtualization Technology (x86 extension for virtualization)
VT100	DEC Video Terminal 100
WAF	Web Application Firewall
WAN	Wide Area Network
Wi-Fi	Wireless LAN technology based on IEEE 802.11 standards (often informally expanded as “Wireless Fidelity”).
WIMP	Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer
WSL	Windows Subsystem for Linux
X	Digital certificate standard (ITU-T X)
x86	Intel/AMD 32-bit/64-bit CPU architecture family
Xerox PARC	Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
XNU	“X is Not Unix”
XP	Windows XP product line
XSS	Cross-Site Scripting
Zsh	Z Shell
CTF	Capture The Flag
STDLIB	The C standard library