Cyber Lexicon

The World Today Updated 7 December 2018 1 minute READ

Bot: Web robot which attempts to mimic human activity

Distributed Denial of Service: Attempt to overwhelm a target with so many requests that it cannot deal with legitimate traffic

Phishing: Email seemingly coming from a legitimate source which asks the target to provide confidential information such as credit card details etc

Stuxnet: Computer worm – a self-replicating piece of software – designed to infect the computers controlling Iran’s nuclear enrichment process

Trojan: Malicious software which hides in a computer to give the attacker unauthorized access

419 Scheme: Confidence fraud in which the target is asked to provide some money, or details of a bank account, against a promise of huge wealth