Glossary

Advanced persistent threat (APT)    An extremely sophisticated adversary

Headers    The detailed information at the beginning of an email, most of which is generally hidden from view, that includes addressing information (To, From), date information, and other technical routing information.

HTML    HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a way of embedding instructions to the computer on how to display information.

Malicious message    A message in electronic form, mediated by automated information processing systems, that has been crafted or designed to assist in the achievement of a goal that is, in one or more ways, dangerous to the best interests of the recipient.

Phishing    This word is pronounced the same as the word “fishing” and it refers to a set of actions done to get victims to reveal sensitive information, such as bank account details, login credentials, passwords, or detailed personal information. In other words, the attacker is fishing for information. Phishing activities are generally performed against large numbers of recipients, using a shotgun approach. A related but more precise form of this activity is called spear-phishing.

Spear-phishing    A variation on phishing, in which the target is precisely identified and the attack is designed specifically for the intended target.

Unsolicited bulk email (UBE)    Similar to junk mail that you receive in your physical mail box, unsolicited bulk email is an identical message sent to many, many email addresses. It can be commercial solicitation, political messaging, or anything else that someone wants to send to a lot of people. It can also be referred to as spam.

Unsolicited commercial email (UCE)    Email that is sent to many people in order to advertise a commercial product. Commonly referred to as spam, and similar to UBE.

URL    URL stands for Uniform Resource Locater. URLs are the links to website and other web addressable elements, such as images or files. These are commonly referred to as web addresses or web links.