by D S Kane
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Defense Department’s agency for advanced research projects, charged with development of weapons systems.
daylight alert. Highest-priority alert.
DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service). A brute-force method of bringing down a website, by overloading it with traffic. Rarely used successfully by any except the most desperate and skillful of hackers.
dry cleaning. Countersurveillance techniques.
ECHELON. An identity-tracking system developed by contract programmers and used by the United States as its primary terrorism-prevention system prior to 9/11. There are currently in excess of forty systems developed since 9/11, used by the NSA to track the identities of US citizens and foreigners.
EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). The basic term denoting a non-check payment.
EMP (Electromagnetic pulse). A high-energy discharge that fries all electronic devices within its range.
exfiltrate. To retrieve an agent from hostile territory.
false flagging. An operation falsely made to appear mounted by another country.
Farm, The. A camp in Virginia used to train CIA case officers and the case officers of intelligence services friendly to the United States.
Fifth Estate. A sociocultural reference to groupings of outlier viewpoints in contemporary society, and is most often associated with bloggers, journalists publishing in non-mainstream media outlets, and the social media. (WikiPedia)
FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC, also called the FISA Court) was established and authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies.
Five Eyes. The intelligence alliance of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
FSB. The Russian internal security and counterintelligence service, created in 1994 as one of the successor agencies of the Soviet-era KGB.
fumigate. Sweeping an area for electronic bugs.
GNU Radio. Developed by Eric Blossom, it is a free and open-source software development toolkit that provides signal-processing blocks to implement software radios. It can be used with readily available low-cost external radio-frequency hardware to create software-defined radios, or without hardware in a simulation-like environment. Prior to his involvement with software radio, Blossom was the cofounder and CTO of Starium, Ltd., where he oversaw the design and development of a line of cryptographic equipment for the commercial marketplace. He is also the founder of an international consulting company called Blossom Research.
go bag. A lightweight luggage carrier used by covert operatives to carry travel essentials, including emergency clothing, sundries, and weapons and ammunition. When not being used, it is typically stored, fully loaded, near a door or under a window for fast access.
heth. Logistician for the Mossad.
honey trap. Sexual entrapment for intelligence purposes.
IDF. Israel Defense Forces; the Israeli army.
InTelQ. CIA’s wholly owned venture capital firm.
katsa. Case officer for the Mossad.
KGB. The Soviet Union’s secret police, the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti was established in March 1954 in Moscow and was attached to the Council of Ministers, but operated independently. With over 500,000 employees, it was the largest spy agency in the world.
kidon. Operative specializing in assassination for the Mossad. (plural: kidonim.)
Krav Maga. Martial art developed by Aman, the Israeli military intelligence directorate, and used by IDF and Mossad. Now taught to many of the global spy agencies.
Liquid armor, or shear thickening fluid (STF). Developed by the US Army in 2003, STF can stop a .38-caliber bullet, but improved versions can stop anything up to a .50-caliber shell.
MI-6. Also known as Great Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.
Mossad. The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations; originally called the Institute for Coordination; called “the Office” by those who work there.
Ness Ziona. Israeli weapons laboratory, located in Herzliya, Israel.
neviot. Surveillance specialist for the Mossad.
NI. Intelligence branch of the Israeli navy.
NOC (non-official cover). The status of a contractor working with the CIA in-country and without sanction or cover from the Agency.
NSA (National Security Agency). Formed under the Truman administration and used as the technology management arm of the United States government.
Office, The. The name of the Mossad used by most of its case officers (katsas).
qoph. Communications officer for the Mossad.
RAID (redundant array of independent disks). Used as a physical non-cloud device for backup of high-value data.
RSA. An encryption algorithm, or key, used to safely send messages between parties on the Internet.
S-13 Russian World War II Submarine. S-13 was a Stalinets-class submarine of the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down by Krasnoye Sormovo in Gorky on 19 October 1938. She was launched on 25 April 1939 and commissioned on 31 July 1941 in the Baltic Fleet, under the command of Captain Pavel Malantyenko. At about 840 tons, this sub carries 12 torpedoes and 6 torpedo tubes, and has a mounted 100mm machine gun and a 45mm cannon on its deck. S-13 was decommissioned on 7 September 1954. (Wikipedia.)
S-56 Russian World War II Submarine. S-56 was a Stalinets-class submarine of the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down by Dalzavod in Vladivostok on 24 November 1936. She was launched on 25 December 1939 and commissioned on 20 October 1941 in the Pacific Fleet. During World War II, the submarine was under the command of Captain Grigori Shchedrin and was moved from the Pacific Fleet to the Northern fleet across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via the Panama Canal. At about 840 tons, this sub carries 12 torpedoes and 6 torpedo tubes, and has a mounted 100mm machine gun and a 45mm cannon on its deck. Now decommissioned. (Wikipedia.)
safe house. Apartment or house used covertly for a base of operations.
sayan. A helper for the Mossad. (plural: sayanim.)
Shabak. Also known as GSS or Shin Bet; the Israeli agency responsible for internal security and defense of Israeli installations abroad, including embassies, consulates, and other organizations.
siloviki. Russian word (the term silovik, literally translates as “person of force”) for politicians from the security or military services, often the officers of the former KGB, GRU, FSB, SVR, the Federal Drug Control, or other security services who came into power. It can also refer to security-service personnel. Siloviki are used to run errands between the Russian mafiya and the Russian government. Some work for the Russian mafiya.
sitrep. Situation report.
slick. Hiding place for documents.
souk. A Middle Eastern marketplace, usually an open-air farmer’s market that also sells craft items.
surveillance detection route. A method used by covert agents, walking back and forth several city blocks, looking at reflective surfaces to discern if they are being followed.
SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). A European agency that sets standards for global financial messages used by banks for near-real-time settlement of electronic funds transfers. The transaction types (debit memo, credit memo, etc.) have numbers to identify them; for example, MT100 is a credit memo sent by one bank to another to indicate payment via real-time book entry.
systema. Martial art used primarily in Russian military and covert operations.
Tze’elim. Israel’s Urban Warfare Training Center in the Negev Desert.
Va’adet Rashei Hasherutim. The committee of the heads of service in Israel’s intelligence community. Mossad is a prime member.
virus (computer). A piece of code that is capable of copying itself and typically has a detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroyi
ng data.
Vory. Russian criminal brotherhood, compatriots.
Wahhabi. Puritan doctrine of Islam, founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) in Saudi Arabia.
wash. Recycling of a valid passport obtained by theft or purchase.
worm (computer). A standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. Often, it uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program.
yahalom. A covert computer hacker, or cybercriminal working for the Mossad’s Yahalomim unit.
zombie patriot. A person with a terminal disease who decides to sacrifice his or her life to earn money that might benefit surviving loved ones.
Glossary B.
Terms Related Specifically to Hacking
(From Motherboard)
Attribution. The process of establishing who is behind a hack. Often, attribution is the most difficult part of responding to a major breach since experienced hackers may hide behind layers of online services that mask their true location and identity. Many incidents, such as the Sony hack, may never produce any satisfactory attribution.
Backdoor. Entering a protected system using a password can be described as going through the front door. Companies may build “backdoors” into their systems, however, so that developers can bypass authentication and dive right into the program. Backdoors are usually secret, but may be exploited by hackers if they are revealed or discovered.
Black hat. A black-hat hacker is someone who hacks for personal gain and/or who engages in illicit and unsanctioned activities. As opposed to white-hack hackers (see below), who traditionally hack in order to alert companies and improve services, black-hat hackers may instead sell the weaknesses they discover to other hackers or use them.
Botnet. Is your computer part of a botnet? It could be, and you might not know it. Botnets, or zombie armies, are networks of computers controlled by an attacker. Having control over hundreds or thousands of computers lets bad actors perform certain types of cyberattacks, such as a DDoS (see below). Buying thousands of computers wouldn’t be economical, however, so hackers deploy malware to infect random computers that are connected to the internet. If your computer gets infected, your machine might be stealthily performing a hacker’s bidding in the background without your ever noticing.
Brute force. A brute force attack is arguably the least sophisticated way of breaking into a password-protected system, short of simply obtaining the password itself. A brute force attack will usually consist of an automated process of trial-and-error to guess the correct passphrase. Most modern encryption systems use different methods for slowing down brute force attacks, making it hard or impossible to try all combinations in a reasonable amount of time.
Bug. A bug is a flaw or error in a software program. Some are harmless or merely annoying, but some can be exploited by hackers. That’s why many companies have started using bug bounty programs to pay anyone who spots a bug before the bad guys do.
Chip-off. A chip-off attack requires the hacker to physically remove memory storage chips in a device so that information can be scraped from them using specialized software. This attack has been used by law enforcement to break into PGP-protected Blackberry phones.
Cracking. A general term to describe breaking into a security system, usually for nefarious purposes. According to the New Hacker’s Dictionary published by MIT Press, the words “hacking” and “hacker” (see below) in mainstream parlance have come to subsume the words “cracking” and “cracker,” and that’s misleading. Hackers are tinkerers; they’re not necessarily bad guys. Crackers are malicious. At the same time, you’ll see cracking used to refer to breaking, say, digital copyright protections—which many people feel is a just and worthy cause—and in other contexts, such as penetration testing (see below), without the negative connotation.
Crypto. Short for cryptography, the science of secret communication or the procedures and processes for hiding data and messages with encryption (see below).
Dark Web. The Dark Web is made up of sites that are not indexed by Google and are only accessible through specialty networks such as Tor (see below). Often, the Dark Web is used by website operators who want to remain anonymous. Everything on the Dark Web is on the Deep Web, but not everything on the Deep Web is on the Dark Web.
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service). This type of cyberattack has become popular in recent years because it’s relatively easy to execute and its effects are obvious immediately. A DDoS attack means an attacker is using a number of computers to flood the target with data or requests for data. This causes the target—usually a website—to slow down or become unavailable. Attackers may also use the simpler Denial of Service (DoS) attack, which is launched from one computer.
Deep Web. This term and “Dark Web” or “Dark Net” are sometimes used interchangeably, though they shouldn’t be. The Deep Web is the part of the internet that is not indexed by search engines. That includes password-protected pages, paywalled sites, encrypted networks, and databases—lots of boring stuff.
DEF CON. One of the most famous hacking conferences in the US and the world, which started in 1992 and takes place every summer in Las Vegas.
Digital Certificate. A digital passport or stamp of approval that proves the identity of a person, website, or service on the internet. In more technical terms, a digital certificate proves that someone is in possession of a certain cryptographic key that, traditionally, can’t be forged. Some of the most common digital certificates are those of websites, which ensure your connection to them is properly encrypted. These get displayed on your browser as a green padlock.
Encryption. The process of scrambling data or messages to make them unreadable and secret. The opposite is decryption, the decoding of the message. Both encryption and decryption are functions of cryptography. Encryption is used by individuals as well as corporations and in digital security for consumer products.
End-to-end encryption. A particular type of encryption in which a message or data gets scrambled or encrypted on one end—for example, at your computer or phone—and gets decrypted on the other end—such as at someone else’s computer. The data are scrambled in a way that, at least in theory, only the sender and receiver—and no one else—can read it.
Evil maid attack. As the name probably suggests, an evil maid attack is a hack that requires physical access to a computer—the kind of access an evil maid might have while tidying his or her employer’s office, for example. By having physical access, a hacker can install software to track your use and gain a doorway even to encrypted information.
Exploit. An exploit is a way or process to take advantage of a bug or vulnerability in a computer or application. Not all bugs lead to exploits. Think of it this way: If your door was faulty, it could be simply that it makes a weird sound when you open it, or that its lock can be picked. Both are flaws but only one can help a burglar get in. The way the criminal picks the lock would be the exploit.
Forensics. On CSI, forensic investigations involve a series of methodical steps in order to establish what happened during a crime. When it comes to a hack, however, investigators are looking for digital fingerprints instead of physical ones. This process usually involves trying to retrieve messages or other information from a device—perhaps a phone, a desktop computer, or a server—used, or abused, by a suspected criminal.
GCHQ. The UK’s equivalent of the US National Security Agency. GCHQ, or Government Communications Headquarters, focuses on foreign intelligence, especially around terrorism threats and cybersecurity. It also investigates the digital child pornography trade. “As these adversaries work in secret, so too must GCHQ,” the organization says on its website. “We cannot reveal publicly everything that we do, but we remain fully accountable.”
Hacker. This term has become—wrongly—synonymous with someone who breaks into systems
or hacks things illegally. Originally, hackers were simply tinkerers, or people who enjoyed “exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities,” as the MIT New Hacker’s Dictionary puts it. Hackers can now be used to refer to both the good guys, also known as white-hat hackers, who play and tinker with systems with no malicious intent (and actually often with the intent of finding flaws so they can be fixed), and cybercriminals, or black-hat hackers, or “crackers.”
Hacktivist. A hacktivist uses his or her hacking skills for political ends. A hacktivist’s actions may be small, such as defacing the public website of a security agency or other government department, or large, such as stealing sensitive government information and distributing it to citizens. One often-cited example of a hacktivist group is Anonymous.
Hashing. Say you have a piece of text that should remain secret, like a password. You could store the text in a secret folder on your machine, but if anyone gained access to it you’d be in trouble. To keep the password a secret, you could also “hash” it with a program that executes a function resulting in garbled text representing the original information. This abstract representation is called a hash. Companies may store passwords or facial recognition data with hashes to improve their security.
HTTPS/SSL/TLS. Stands for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol,” with the “S” for “Secure.” The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the basic framework that controls how data is transferred across the web, while HTTPS adds a layer of encryption that protects your connection to the most important sites in your daily browsing—your bank, your email provider, and social networks. HTTPS uses the protocols SSL and TLS not only to protect your connection but also to prove the identity of the site, so that when you type “https://gmail.com” you can be confident you’re really connecting to Google and not an imposter site.
Infosec. An abbreviation of “Information Security.” It’s the inside baseball term for what’s more commonly known as cybersecurity, a term that irks most people who prefer infosec.
