Cybersecurity Terms - W
Warning, Advice and Reporting Point (WARP) - (Services which provide informational notices, bulletins, or warnings, but do not offer incident response or intrusion detection or prevention. Usually focus on a particular region or industry, such as travel or banking - notices about scams or fraudulent activities.)
Watering Hole Attack - (Type of attack where the attacker compromises a secondary system, such as a popular website, knowing that eventually users will come to it for information or data, and waits for users to visit the site, before attempting to send malware to user's hosts. May use information gathered about visitors to target hosts with e-mails using social engineering techniques.)
Wavelength (Wave)-Division Multiplexing (WDM) - (A method of transmitting light waves of different wavelengths over optical fiber cable by multiplexing (mixing or combining) multiple individual optical transmitter signals for transmission over one transmission line (optical fiber capital) and then be de-multiplexed (de-mixed) back into individual signals on the receiver side.)
weapon(s) of mass destruction (WMD) - (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons that can cause damage, destruction, or contamination over a wide area, or inflict sickness, death, or injury on a large number of people)
web access management (WAM) - (Software which controls what users can access when using a web browser to visit websites or attempt to use the services of sites providing services, such as online banking or product ordering.)
Web application firewall (WAF) - (A firewall that filters, monitors, and blocks HTTP traffic to and from a Web application. Differs from a regular firewall in that a WAF is able to filter based on the content of HTTP traffic, while regular firewalls restrict traffic based on IP (Internet Protocol) and port.)
Web Cache Communication Protocol (WCCP) - (Web firewall device which re-directs all traffic through a Web proxy device.)
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) - (A service-oriented architecture (SOA) computing technology which provides a machine-readable description of the specific operations provided by a service.)
Web Services Network (WSN) - (A network which provides a secure environment for common applications for users of the network, such as billing, allowing the provider of the network to act as a trusted third party for auditing and non-repudiation. A vulnerability of WSN is that it may not work well across multiple systems, which require integration and firewalls monitoring WSN traffic may miss malware or viruses.)
whitelist/whitelisting - (A whitelist is a set/list of known- good or approved resources, such as IP addresses, domain names, or software applications. Whitelisting is the process or term associated with the use of a whitelist.)
wide area network (WAN) - (A network which connects systems over a wide geographic area - the Internet is an example.)
Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) - (An encryption standard for wireless which uses/complies with AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) technology. WPA is considered less vulnerable than Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption.)
Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) - (An automated and semi-automated process to set up a secure wireless connection for a wireless network at the time a wireless device is connected to a wireless access point (WAP) by pushing a button to enter a WPS personal identification number (PIN). The PIN was used as the network's secure WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) key. WPS was found to be ineffective for security, since the PIN password could be identified by a brute-force attack.)
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) - (First attempt at a wireless security protocol which used an encryption algorithm, although was considered weak, as it was susceptible to attacks.)
wireless access point (WAP) - (Commonly called an access point (AP), which is a low-power, directional transceiver (transmitter/receiver) that is connected to the local area network (LAN) through a standard network connection. The WAP associates with wireless devices within its immediate vicinity and transmits packets from the wired network to the wireless device.)
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) - (A set of protocols proposed by mobile industry companies, such as Ericsson, Motorala, and Nokia, and introduced in 1999, intended to standardize the way different wireless devices and technologies, such as mobile phones, radio transceivers, and systems software, communicate, using types of communication, such as e-mail, newsgroups, and instant messaging.)
wireless intrusion detection system (WIDS) - (A system typically implemented on an existing wireless LAN infrastructure which receives wireless transmitted packets, analyzes the packets, correlates the packets against existing IT policy standards, and alerts the WIDS administrator if there is a violation. A WIDS may be simply a workstation with an antenna running a specialized sniffing application.)
wireless intrusion prevention system (WIPS) - (A system typically implemented on an existing wireless LAN infrastructure which receives wireless transmitted packets, analyzes the packets, correlates the packets against existing IT policy standards, and alerts the WIPS administrator if there is a violation. A WIPS may be simply a workstation with an antenna running a specialized sniffing application.)
wireless local area network (WLAN) - (A network which connects network components within a local area, such as a building or small area, using wireless technology, such as cellular radio transmitters, receivers, and transceivers, where several user workstations connect using Wi-Fi to an access point installed in the room.)
wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) - (A wireless network covering a very large geographic area, such as a city, that connects groups of smaller networks or connects directly to end users, which utilizes radio transmitters and receivers to communicate to wired LANS through access points or directly to wireless endpoints.)
wireless personal area network (WPAN) - (A geographically small wireless network which connects various personal local devices, such as a computer connecting with a wireless keyboard, a cellular phone communicating with a computer, or a headset communicating with another device.)
wireless wide area network (WWAN) - (A network which connects systems over a wide geographic area using wireless technology, such as cellular radio transmitters, receivers, and transceivers (cell phones, laptops, and cellular-enabled devices).)
work breakdown structure (WBS) - (Project management tool used to define and group a project's individual work elements in an organized manner.)
Work Factor (WF) - (In the area of cryptoanalysis, the time and effort it would take to break a specific encrypted text.)
work recovery time (WRT) - (The time, following a disaster, after a business process has been restored to a designated service level, i.e., when infrastructure and systems are back up and running, which it will take to restore data, test processes, and then make everything "live" for production purposes.)
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) - (United Nations (UN) agency which oversees international intellectual property rights efforts, involving the copyright, patents, and trademark areas and disputes.)
World Wide Web (WWW) - (Term used for the visible part of the Internet, i.e., the visible websites and processes, such as website searches, term searches or look-ups, which runs on top of the Internet. The Internet is considered to be the "infrastructure," or collection of physical devices, communications protocols, and functions operating underneath the World Wide Web, which serve to provide the WWW services, such as displaying websites or answering questions, and allowing data input.)
Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) - (A wireless connection, intended to replace Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) with a high-performance, end-to-end Internet network architecture with a much stronger and robust geographically-based system covering a much larger physical area than Wi-Fi covers. Its technical specifications are based on the IEEE 802.16 (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Since the WiMAX connection is considered highly reliable and capable of bypassing local telephone line service providers, it has been adopted by some cities for use by emergency services, such as police, fire, and ambulance, and also by some industries for use in large industrial complexes, such as chemical plants, oil refineries, and major manufacturing plants covering large-scale physical areas.)