*It’s from the Italian government in their recent document “National Strategic Framework for Cyberspace Security.” This certainly is written in some excellent, technically-aware English. The English in this Italian document is far more lucid than most English that comes out of Brussels. Who could write such a thing?

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*I was intrigued to learn that “ICE” is “European Critical Infrastructure.” What times we live in these days.

http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/22416/security/italy-national-strategic-framework-cyber-security.html

http://www.sicurezzanazionale.gov.it/sisr.nsf/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/italian-national-strategic-framework-for-cyberspace-security.pdf

GLOSSARY OF CYBERSECURITY

AGCOM – The Communications Regulatory Authority

The two main tasks assigned to this independent Authority by Law no. 249/1997 are to ensure equitable conditions for fair market competition and to protect fundamental rights of all citizens.

APT – Advanced Persistent Threat A threat entailing a targeted attack, aimed at installing a number of malwares in the networks of the target in order to establish links necessary for remotely exfiltrating relevant information from the networks of the targeted entity.

BYOD – Bring Your Own Device A policy allowing company employees to bring their own mobile devices (laptops, smart phones, tablets, etc.) to their workplace and using them in order to have access to information and corporate applications, i.e. emails.

ccTLD – Country Code Top Level Domain The last part of the Internet domain name used by a State. It consists of two letters: “.it” for Italy.

CERT – Computer Emergency Response Team

Organization with the tasks of preventing cyber incidents and coordinating response to cyber events. Several CERTs also carry out training and information functions for ICT users.

CERT-PA – Computer Emergency Response Team – Public Administration

Evolution of the CERT-SPC (see next paragraph) with a competence extended to Public Administration’s ICT and computer systems and to all its services, in addition to the interconnecting networks. It has the task of supporting and coordinating the Public Administration in preventing to, responding to, and recovering from cyber incidents.

CERT-SPC – Computer Emergency Response Team – System of Public Connectivity

The structure responsible, at thenational level, for preventing, monitoring, ensuring information sharing and analysis of the security incidents within the Public Administration SPC. It has also the mandate of ensuring the implementation of a coherent and uniform methodology for managing ICT incidents. The CERT-SPC is primary point of contact for all Local Units of Security (ULS) established for each network domain connected with the SPC.

CNA – Computer Network Attack Activities that are conducted in and through the cyberspace in order to manipulate, obstruct, deny, downgrade or destroy information stored in the ICT networks or in the computer systems, or the ICT networks or in the computer systems themselves.

CNAIPIC – National Anti-crime Computer Centre for the Protection of Critical Infrastructure

The CNAIPIC, established by Law no. 155/2005 and with a Decree of the Minister of the Interior of 9th February 2008, is set within the Service of Postal Police and Communications, which is responsible for the security and the integrity of IT communications of the Ministry of the Interior, National Authority of Public Security. The Centre, as provided for by law, is responsible for ensuring prevention and repression of cyber crimes against critical infrastructures or ICT assets of national relevance, even through partnership agreements with the structures concerned.

CND – Computer Network Defence Actions taken by using computer networks for protecting, monitoring, analyzing, detecting, and hindering non-authorized activities carried out against computer networks and IT systems.

CNE – Computer Network Exploitation Operations carried out in cyberspace in order to extract information from targeted ICT networks or computer systems. They are intelligence gathering activities, or actions preparing the execution of a cyber attack.

CNO – Computer Network Operation This term generally encompasses Computer Network Attack (CNA), Computer Network Defence (CND) and Computer Network Exploitation (CNE).

CPS – Cyber Physical System

ICT networks and computer systems supporting, managing and supervising physical assets such as civil infrastructures, aerospace, transports, health care, energy and production processes.

CSBM – Confidence and Security Building Measures

Measures aimed at preventing or resolving hostilities among States, and at avoiding their worsening by developing mutual confidence. Such measures can have formal or informal, bilateral or multilateral, military or political nature.

DoS – Denial of Service Attack aimed at making a computerized system or resource unavailable to legitimate users by saturating and overloading server’s network connections.

DDoS – Distributed Denial of Service A DoS attack launched by several compromised and infected systems (Botnets).

DF – Digital Forensics A discipline – also called computer forensics– that deals with identifying, storing, analyzing, and reporting computer finds, in order to present valid digital evidence that can be submitted in civil or criminal proceedings.

DNS – Domain Name System A classification system of domain consisting of a distributed database converting automatically a website address into a Internet Protocol numerical code (IP address), which identifies the server web hosting the site.

ENISA – European Network and Information Security Agency

An Agency of the European Union established to foster ICT security through technical counseling to national authorities and EU institutions, to facilitate the sharing of best practices as well as the emergence of a community of ICT security practitioners, and to promote the Culture of Security.

Exploit

A code using a bug or a vulnerability of a computerized system.

IC – Critical Infrastructures

Critical infrastructure is an asset or system within the EU which is essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions. The damage to a critical infrastructure, its destruction or disruption may have a significant negative impact for the security of the EU and the well-being of its citizens (Art. 2 lit. b) (Directive 2008/114/ CE).

ICE – European Critical Infrastructures

Critical structure within the EU member States whose damage or destruction can have a significant impact on at least two member states. The relevance of such an impact is assessed comprehensively, that is to say in terms of the impacts on other sectors, including the impact on other sectors related to other infrastructures (Art. 2 lit. e) (Directive 2008/114/CE).

Social Engineering

Art of manipulating the psyche of people in order to force them to carry out specific actions or disclose confidential information, such as the login credentials to computerized systems.

IoE – Internet of Everything

A network where people, objects, data and processes are connected to one another through the Internet, and where information is transformed into actions in real time, thus creating new and as today unforeseen business opportunities.

IoT – Internet of Things

A buzz word referred to the extension of the Internet to the world of objects, which become remotely accessible through the Internet and are therefore National strategic framework for cyberspace security able to communicate information about themselves connecting to other objects and users. The objective is to ensure that the Internet traces a map of the real world, giving an electronic identity to things and places in the physical environment. The potential applications of the IoT are multiple: from the industrial applications (productive processes), to logistics and info mobility, up to the energetic efficiency, remote assistance and environment protection.

ISP – Internet Service Provider A company that provides commercial internet access and other services through a telephone line such as Dialup and ISDN or broadband connections like optical fibers or DSL.

Malware

Contraction of “Malicious software”. A program injected in a computer system, generally surreptitiously, with the intention of compromising privacy, integrity or the availability of data, of the applications or of the operative systems of the target. To this general category belong, for example: viruses, worm, trojans, backdoor, spyware, dialer, hijacker, rootkit, scareware, rabbit, keylogger, logic bombs, etc.

Phishing

A cyber attack having, generally, as objective the wheedling of sensitive information (user-id, password, credit card numbers, PIN) by sending false emails to a large number of addresses. The emails are designed to convince the receivers to open an attachment or to access a false website. The phisher uses the data it gets to acquire goods, transfer money or only as a “bridge” for further attacks.

Reverse engineering

An analysis designed to understand the functioning of hardware and software products in order to reengineer them, for example, to enhance their functions or in order to use them for different and further aims with respect to the original ones.

SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition

Systems employed in the monitoring and control of plants and equipment in sectors such as traffic control (air, rail, automobile), the control of systems of fluid stransportation (aqueducts, pipelines, etc.), of the distribution of the electrical energy, managing production lines that realize industrial processes and remote environmental detection surveys.

SOC – Security Operations Center A center that provides services aimed at the security of computer systems in firms (internal SOC) or external clients. A SOC can also supply incident response services: in this case it acts as a Computer Security Incident Response Team(CSIRT), even if this function often depends on a separate entity within the firm.

TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol

A set of standard protocol developed in the second half of the’ 70s by the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), with the aim of allowing communication among different types of computers and computer networks. TCP/IP is, still today, used by the Internet.

UTM – Unified Threat Management An integrated security product to protect from multiple threats,

consisting of a firewall, an antivirus software, and systems to filter spam and its contents.

Web defacement

An attack carried out against a website and consisting in modifying the contents of the homepage or of other pages of the website.