Security concepts refer to the strategies, controls, and frameworks used to protect data, systems, and networks from unauthorized access or damage. Core ideas include confidentiality, integrity, availability, and non-repudiation.
An overprovisioned account has more access privileges than necessary for its role or function. When service accounts, CI/CD pipelines, or other nonhuman identities are granted broader permissions than required, attackers can exploit the excess for lateral movement and privilege escalation.
A master password is a single, high-entropy cryptographic secret that undergoes password-based key derivation functions (PBKDFs) to generate encryption keys for protecting stored credentials, secrets, and sensitive data within password managers and secrets management systems.
Multifactor authentication (MFA) is an authentication process that requires users to provide two or more distinct verification factors from different categories (knowledge, possession, or inherence) to verify their identity before granting access to systems or resources.
Granularity refers to the level of detail and precision an access control system can apply when defining permissions. A granular access model allows organizations to specify exactly which identities, human or nonhuman, can perform which actions on which resources, under which conditions.
A digital certificate is an electronic credential issued by a trusted third party (certificate authority, or CA). It securely links a public key to an identity, enabling secure sign-in and encrypted communication between your machines, applications, or users.
Beyond avoiding fines, a strong cybersecurity compliance framework is a forcing function for security excellence. It pushes teams to eliminate credential sprawl, implement zero-trust principles, and maintain visibility into access patterns across increasingly complex architectures.
An attribute assertion is simply a structured, verifiable claim about an identity, whether it’s a human user or a piece of software. It’s delivered by your identity system to another application during authentication.
Workload identity management governs how non-human entities, applications, services, containers, scripts, and automated processes) authenticate and authorize their interactions across distributed systems.
A secret is sensitive credential material or key data used to authenticate or authorize access to systems, services, or data. In modern infrastructure, secrets encompass API keys, passwords, tokens, certificates, database credentials, SSH keys, and OAuth client secrets that workloads and services use for machine-to-machine authentication.
