Reference · Plain English
A glossary, for buyers.
The acronyms and jargon that show up across the rest of this site, defined the way we'd define them to a non-technical board member. We add entries here as new ones come up in proposals.
Security.
- MDRManaged Detection and Response
A security service where someone is contractually paid to read the alerts at 3am and respond on your behalf — not just generate a dashboard.
- EDREndpoint Detection and Response
A tool that monitors endpoints — laptops, desktops, servers — for malicious behaviour and contains threats automatically, going beyond signature-based antivirus.
- SOCSecurity Operations Centre
The 24/7 function — people, process, and tooling — that monitors security telemetry, triages alerts, and responds to incidents on an organisation's behalf.
- MFAMulti-Factor Authentication
A sign-in control that requires two or more proofs of identity — typically a password plus a phone, security key, or biometric — before granting access.
- Conditional Access
A Microsoft Entra ID feature that gates sign-ins based on context — user, location, device compliance, sign-in risk — and applies controls like MFA or block.
- Zero Trust
A security architecture philosophy summarised as "never trust, always verify" — every access request is authenticated and authorised explicitly, regardless of network location.
- SIEMSecurity Information and Event Management
A tool that aggregates and correlates security logs from across an environment and applies detection rules to surface alerts for human investigation.
- Phishing
A social-engineering attack that tricks users into revealing credentials or executing malicious payloads, usually via email — and the most common initial access vector for data breaches.
- BECBusiness Email Compromise
An email-based fraud where attackers impersonate executives or vendors to redirect payments or extract sensitive data — no malware involved, hard for traditional tooling to catch.
- Ransomware
Malware that encrypts data and demands payment for the decryption key — increasingly paired with data extortion, where stolen data is threatened with publication.
Infrastructure.
- RPORecovery Point Objective
The maximum amount of data loss, measured in time, that a business can tolerate for a given workload after an incident.
- RTORecovery Time Objective
The maximum acceptable downtime for a given workload after an incident, measured from the moment of failure to the moment service is restored.
- Patch management
The discipline of applying security and stability updates to operating systems and applications promptly, on a defined schedule, with reporting on what's done and what's outstanding.
Compliance.
- ISO 27001ISO 27001 Information Security Management Systems
The international standard for how an organisation manages information security. Symsafe has been certified against it since 2018 by GCC, an accredited certification body.
- Essential Eight
The Australian Cyber Security Centre's prioritised list of eight mitigation strategies for protecting Microsoft Windows-based environments from common cyber threats.