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Terms and Concepts in the Cye platform

Key terms and cybersecurity concepts you’ll see in the the Cye Exposure Management Platform platform.

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Overview

the Cye platform uses a set of consistent terms to describe cyber risk, findings, assets, and mitigation strategies. This article defines the most important concepts you’ll encounter — whether you're exploring the dashboard or interpreting a maturity report. Familiarity with this language will make it easier to navigate and understand the Cye platform’s insights.


Core the Cye platform Concepts

  • Business Assets
    Critical entities that need protection — like customer data, intellectual property, or operational systems.

  • Cost of Breach (CoB)
    A dollar estimate of the financial damage your organization could face from a successful breach, including direct and indirect losses.

  • Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ)
    Converts cyber threats into measurable financial impact to help you prioritize actions based on risk exposure.

  • Exposure
    The current monetary risk tied to your assets. Calculated using likelihood of attack and impact severity.

  • Exposure Reduction Quantification
    Shows how much your exposure will drop if a specific finding is mitigated.

  • Engagement
    A project in the Cye platform that defines what will be assessed (e.g., asset discovery, cloud assessment).

  • Finding
    A validated vulnerability or weakness that can be mitigated to reduce organizational risk.

  • Finding Templates
    Predefined vulnerability types you can use to quickly create new findings in the Cye platform.

  • Mitigation Plan
    A prioritized action plan designed to reduce risk by resolving specific findings.

  • Maturity Assessment
    Measures how well your organization is aligned with cybersecurity best practices (like NIST CSF), and where it can improve.


Threats and Security Terms

  • Threats
    Internal or external actors (e.g., attackers from the internet or rogue employees) that pose risk to your business assets.

  • Advanced Persistent Threats (APT)
    Targeted, sustained attacks by determined threat actors trying multiple paths to breach your environment.

  • Residual Risk
    The risk that remains after you’ve applied all planned mitigation actions.

  • Risk Assessment
    The process of identifying potential risks and evaluating their possible impact.

  • Risk Tolerance
    The amount of risk your organization is willing to accept, recognizing that risk can never be eliminated completely.

  • Security Posture
    Your organization’s overall ability to identify, protect against, detect, and respond to cyber threats.

  • Reputation
    The long-term brand and trust impact from a breach — often factored into breach cost calculations.

  • Business Continuity
    Your ability to maintain essential operations during and after a cyber event.

  • Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)
    A technical plan for restoring systems and data following a serious incident or breach.


Testing, Logging, and Controls

  • Black Box Testing
    Security testing with no internal system knowledge — simulates an external attacker.

  • White Box Testing
    Security testing with full internal knowledge — useful for in-depth assessments.

  • Audit Log
    A record of who did what, when — used for compliance and forensic reviews.

  • Baselining
    Defining what “normal” looks like on your systems to detect anomalies.

  • Configuration Management
    Tracking and controlling system changes to avoid unintended security consequences.

  • Operations Security (OpSec)
    Protecting sensitive information through secure operations and behavior.


Tools, Frameworks, and Acronyms

  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) / Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
    Requiring more than one method of identity verification (e.g., password + mobile code).

  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
    Permissions tied to roles, not individual users — helps manage who can access or modify specific content.

  • OWASP
    The Open Web Application Security Project — a leading authority on web app vulnerabilities.

  • NIST
    The National Institute of Standards and Technology — the origin of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework used in the Cye platform.

  • SIEM
    Security Information and Event Management — collects and analyzes security-related data from across your infrastructure.

  • SCADA
    Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition — industrial systems used in power plants, factories, etc., often highly sensitive.

  • Web Application Firewall (WAF)
    A firewall that monitors and filters traffic between your web apps and the internet.

  • Zero-Day Attack
    An exploit that targets a vulnerability before the vendor or defender even knows it exists.


Important notes

  • Many of these terms appear in the Cye platform dashboards, reports, or graph views.

  • Some (like CoB or Maturity) are tied directly to platform features and calculations.

  • For full definitions used in the Cye platform's logic and visualizations, refer to the Glossary when needed.


Wrap-up / Next Steps

Understanding the language of the Cye platform helps you navigate the platform more effectively. Don’t worry about memorizing everything — you can always return to this guide if something’s unclear along the way.

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