Core Technical Competencies in Information Security

As an aid to my students (and frankly myself when I need a quick reference) here is a list of terms that I think information security managers should be familiar with. I will list the terms in an area and provide a wiki link for it:

I. History of Computing and Other Concepts
Charles Babbage
Difference Engine
Alan Turing
computability
Turing Machine
Turing Test
Gordon Moore
Moore's Law
batch processing vs. interactive processing

II. Computing Platforms and Operating Systems
Mainframes
IBM s/360, s/390, etc
JCL
TSO
ISPF

Minicomputers
DEC
VAX
VMS
"workstations"
DEC Alpha

Personal Computers
Intel
AMD
Windows
Linux
Cygwin
MS-DOS
OSX
GUI
console interface

III. Networking Basics
lan
wan
ethernet
Netware
Token Ring
10Base-T
100Base-T
1000Base-T
Nic Card
Router
Switch
Hub
Cat-5/Cat-5e
IP address
IPv4
IPv6
TCP/IP
packet
DNS
peer-to-peer network
domain
subdomain
NAT
gateway
bridge
Class A, B, C, D, and E Networks
subnet mask
MAC address
vlan

ISP Types
ethernet
cable
dsl/adsl
ISDN
dial-up

wireless technology
wi-fi
bluetooth
bluejacking
packet sniffing
WAP
i-mode
3G
WEP
wardriving
satellite

IV. Development of the Internet
ARPA/DARPA
Arpanet
Stanford-UCLA
backbone

V. Internet Applications
Tim Berners Lee
HTTP
HTML
Html tag
xHTML
XML
SGML
browser
email
telenet
gopher
IRC
NNTP
POP
SMTP
gnutella
p2p file sharing
wiki
blog
FTP
Hotline
BitTorrent

VI. Malware and Other Forms of Attack
Types of Malware
virus
worm
trojan horse
spyware
phishing
rootkit
spam
DoS Attack

Some Famous Attacks
Morris
Melissa
Love Bug
Sircam
Code Red
Nimda
Slammer
Blaster
Nachi
Sobig
MyDoom

VII. Security Devices and Procedures
Intrusion Detection
Firewalls
defense-in-depth
anti-virus software
port scanning
public/private key encryption
content filtering
VPN's
black hat
white hat
gray hat
Hacktivism