Cybersecurity Acronyms Cheat Sheet

Excelling in cybersecurity requires mastery of a broad range of security skills — like how to manage vulnerabilities, how to interpret cybersecurity metrics, and how to design systems to be resilient against attack.

But before you learn all that, you need to know how to speak like a cybersecurity expert. You must be able to explain the difference between an APT and AES, or how IAM differs from PAM.

To that end, we've prepared this Cybersecurity Acronyms Cheat Sheet to serve as a reference guide for cybersecurity acronyms you should be familiar with in 2024. It covers basic security acronyms that have been around for decades, as well as some trendier terms that have emerged only in recent years.