The FREE Cybersecurity Glossary by Thor Pedersen!

Escrow Agent: A trusted third-party entity that holds assets or documents, such as encryption keys, in a secure environment to be released only when specific conditions are met. The escrow agent facilitates transactions by ensuring compliance with terms, maintaining security, and providing accountability in processes requiring faith and integrity.

Ethernet: A networking technology used for local, metropolitan, and wide area networks, initially developed by Xerox in the 1970s and standardized by IEEE as IEEE 802.3. Ethernet allows devices to communicate over wired data networks using physical cables and switches, facilitating data packet exchange between computers, printers, and other devices. It has evolved to support various data rate standards and is central to most modern wired network infrastructures.

Ethical Disclosure: The practice of responsibly reporting security vulnerabilities found in software or systems to the organization responsible, allowing them time to address and fix the issues before they can be exploited by malicious actors.

EU-US Privacy Shield: The EU-US Privacy Shield was a framework designed to ensure compliance with EU data protection requirements when transferring personal data from the European Union to the United States. However, it's important to note that the Privacy Shield was invalidated by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in July 2020. Organizations previously relying on this framework now have to find alternative mechanisms, such as Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), for transatlantic data transfers that meet EU data protection standards.

Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL): A numerical grade assigned to an information system product or system for the certification of its security. Defined by the Common Criteria certification standards, the EAL represents a third-party assessment of the design, implementation, and testing of security functions, with levels ranging from EAL1 (functionally tested) to EAL7 (formally verified, designed, and tested).

Event: In a general context, an event is something that happens or takes place, particularly something of importance. In computing and IT, an event often refers to an action or occurrence recognized by software that may be handled by the system or by user code. Events can include user inputs, system signals, or messages from other programs. In terms of cybersecurity, an event can be any observable occurrence in a system or network, including potential security incidents. Event management is a key part of system monitoring, and cybersecurity event logs are critical for incident response and forensic analysis. It is just a change to a system or data, it is not positive or negative, just an observable change.