CPM Dictionary: D

DAC: See also Discretionary Access Control

Daemon: Program typically launched at system boot time that runs continuously without intervention from any of the system users; forwards requests to other programs (or processes) as appropriate

Dam: Barrier built across a waterway that controls or diverts the flow of water

Dam Failure: Uncontrolled release of impounded water resulting in downstream flooding

Damage: Measurement of the amount of harm that a given threat might inflict; includes triggered events, clogging e-mail servers, deleting or modifying files, releasing confidential information, performance degradation, errors in the virus code, compromising security settings, and the ease with which the damage may be fixed

Damage Assessment: 1) Post-disaster, the process of assessing damage to computer hardware, vital records, office facilities, buildings, etc., determining what can be salvaged or restored, what must be destroyed, and what must be replaced; 2) process used to appraise or determine the number of injuries and deaths, damage to public and private property, and the status of key facilities and services such as hospitals and other health care facilities, fire and police stations, communications networks, water and sanitation systems, utilities, and transportation networks resulting from a man-made or natural disaster (FEMA)

Dark Avenger: Code name of a Bulgarian virus author supposedly responsible for the "Eddie" family of viral programs (among others) and other polymorphic code

Data: Collection of material or facts on which a discussion or an inference is based; rudimentary facts prior to be converted into information

Data Aggregation: Ability to obtain a more complete picture of information by analyzing several different types of records at once

Data Backup: Process of creating copies of system, application, program and/or production files to media that can be stored both on and/or off site

Data Backup Strategies: Predefined procedures, typically backup and restoration processes that meet a firm’s data recovery and restoration objectives; include timeframes, technologies, media and offsite backup storage, and ensure that recovery point and time objectives can be met

Data Center Recovery: Processes associated with the restoration, at an alternate location, of data center services and computer processing capabilities. See also Mainframe Recovery, Technology Recovery

Data Collection: Gathering, assembling, and delivering data to a centralized collection point for subsequent analysis. See also Data

Data Encryption Algorithm (DEA): Symmetric block cipher, part of the Data Encryption Standard; defined as an algorithm that functions as the mathematical engine

Data Encryption Standard (DES): Frequently-used method of data encryption using a private (secret) key; for each message, a key is chosen at random from among available keys; both the sender and the receiver must know and use the same private key; stronger version available with triple DES (or 3DES). Original DES algorithm is no longer the industry standard; to be superseded by the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)

Data Flow Control: See also Information Flow Control

Data Integrity: Property of data in which it meets a prior expectation of quality

Data Mining: Technique used to analyze existing information, usually with the intention of pursuing opportunities for new business

Data Mirroring: Recovery process where critical data is copied concurrently to another storage medium in another location so that it is not lost in the event of a disaster. See also Emergency Data Services

Data, Mortality: See also Mortality Data

Data Owner: Entity with responsibility and authority for data

Data Protection: Processes that manage personal data such that it does not threaten or disadvantage the person to whom it serves

Data Recovery: Restoration of computer files from backup media; used to restore programs and production data to the state that existed at the time of the last safe backup

Data Security: Protection of data from unauthorized (accidental or intentional) modification, destruction, or disclosure

Data Template: Defines files or registry entries to be included in a backup

Data Transfer: Movement of information from one location to another; transfer speed known as the data rate or data transfer rate

Data Transmission: Electronic transfer of information from a sending device to a receiving device

Data Warehousing: Consolidation of several previously independent databases into one location

Database Replication: Partial or full duplication of data from a source database to one or more destination databases; process can use mirroring or shadowing, and may be performed synchronous, asynchronous, or point-in-time depending on the technologies used, recovery point requirements, distance and connectivity to the source database, etc. Can be performed remotely, as a backup for disasters. See also File Shadowing, Disk Mirroring, Journaling

Database Shadowing: See also Emergency Data Services

Datagram: Sometimes defined as a “Self-contained, independent entity of data carrying sufficient information to be routed from the source to the destination computer without reliance on earlier exchanges between this source and destination computer and the transporting network"; term has been generally replaced by the term packet, which is used in connectionless communications.

Date Time Group: Date and time expressed in digits and zone suffix at which a message was prepared for transmission

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service): Type of network denial of service (DoS) attack in which a master computer controls a number of client computers to flood the target (or victim) with traffic, using backdoor agent, client, or zombie software on a number of client machines. See also Data Encryption Algorithm

Death Rate: Estimate of the portion of a population that dies during a specified period

Decapsulation: In packet switching, the process of stripping off one layer's headers and passing the rest of the packet up to the next higher layer on the protocol stack

Deception: Presenting false or forged identity or authentication in order to break security policy. See also Social Engineering and Spoofing

Decipher: See also Decryption

Decision Point: Point in time when decision to invoke emergency procedures must be made to ensure the continued viability of an organization

Declaration: Formal announcement by pre-authorized personnel that a disaster or severe outage is predicted or has occurred; this triggers pre-arranged response and mitigation actions (e.g., relocation to an alternate site)

Declaration Fee: One-time fee, typically charged by alternate facility providers (and sometimes waived), to a customer who declares a disaster; may be applied against first few days of recovery. See also: Notification Fee

Declassification: Administrative decision or procedure to remove or reduce the security classification of the object or information

Decontamination: 1) The reduction or removal of a chemical, biological, or radiological material from the surface of a structure, area, object, or person (FEMA definition); 2) removal of hazardous chemicals or nuclear substances from the skin and/or mucous membranes by showering or washing the affected area with water, or by rinsing with a sterile solution (Landesman definition.)

Decryption: Transforming an encrypted message into its original plaintext

Dedicated Security Mode: See also Modes of Operation

Defacement: Modifying website content in such a way that it becomes "vandalized" or embarrassing to the website owner

Default Account: System login account that has been predefined in a manufactured system to permit initial access when the system is first put into service

Default Classification: Temporary classification reflecting the highest classification being processed in a system; usually included in caution statement linked to the object

Default Password: Password on system administration or service accounts when a system is shipped from the manufacturer; failure to change default passwords or default accounts presents a major security risk

Default Threat Measure Rating: Rating based on appropriate threat profiles and estimates of security experts

Default Vulnerability Measure: Level of danger posed by a threat before accounting for safeguards used to secure it; using a valid safeguard ensures that the current vulnerability measure is less than the default vulnerability measure

Defense-in-Depth: Approach that uses multiple layers of security to guard against failure of a single security component

Degauss: Reduce magnetic flux density to zero by applying a reverse magnetizing field; used to destroy or remove information on magnetic media

Degausser: Electrical device that generates a magnetic field for degaussing magnetic storage media

Degrades Performance: Situation in which a payload slows computer operations, which could involve allocating available memory, creating files that consume disk space, or causing programs to load or execute more slowly

Delayed Disclosure: Type of vulnerability disclosure in which information about the vulnerability is not released to the general public until it has first been made known to the product vendor

Deletes Files: Situation in which a payload deletes various files on the hard disk

Demobilization Unit: Functional unit within the ICS Planning Section responsible for assuring orderly, safe and efficient demobilization of incident or EOC assigned resources

Denial of Access: Inability of a organization to access and/or occupy its normal working environment; usually imposed and managed by emergency management team. See also Site Access Denial

Denial of Service: Prevention of authorized access to a system resource or the delaying of system operations and functions

Department Operations Center: Facility used by a distinct discipline, such as flood operations, fire, medical, hazardous material, or a unit, such as Department of Public Works, or Department of Health

Dependency: Reliance, either directly or indirectly, of one activity or process upon another. See also Mission Critical Activity Dependency

Deploy: To execute a system implementation, e.g., performing a remote installation

DES: See also Data Encryption Standard

Descriptive Epidemiology: Study of occurrence of disease or other health-related characteristics in human populations; analyzes relationship of disease to basic characteristics such as age, sex, race, occupation, and social class; also concerned with geographic location. See also Applied Epidemiology; Epidemiology

Descriptive Top-Level Specification (DTLS): Top-level specification that is written in a natural language (e.g., English), an informal design notation, or a combination of the two

Designated Approving Authority (DAA): Official(s) with authority to decide on accepting security safeguards or who may be responsible for issuing an accreditation statement that records the decision to accept those safeguards

Designated Area: Geographic area designated under a Presidential major disaster declaration which is eligible to receive disaster assistance in accordance with the provisions of Public Law (P.L.) 93-288, as amended

Desk Check: Method for testing specific components of an emergency plan, in which the owner or author of the component reviews it for accuracy and completeness and initials the action

Desktop Computer: 1) computer used primarily to perform work for individuals rather than to act as a server; 2) personal computer or workstation designed to reside on or under a desktop

Desktop Exercise: See also Table Top Exercise

Destroyed: Facility or structure which received severe damage and is no longer technically or economically feasible to repair

Deterrent Control: See also Controls

Detective Control: See also Controls

DHA: Department of Humanitarian Affairs

DHS: Department of Homeland Security

Diagnosis: Process of determining health status and the factors responsible for producing it; may be applied to an individual, family, group, or community

Dial: Initiate a connection via LAN, modem, or direct connection, regardless of whether actual dialing is involved

Dial Back: See also Call Back

Dial-Up: Service whereby a computer terminal can use a telephone or similar connection to initiate communication with a computer or network

Dictionary Attack: Variant of a brute force attack that tries all phrases or words in a dictionary, trying to crack a password or key; also uses a predefined list of words. See also Brute Force

Differential Backup: Backup process that copies only such items that have been changed since the last full backup; requires only the last full backup and the latest differential backup for complete restoration. See also Incremental Backup

Diffie-Hellman: Algorithm published in 1976 by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman. Diffie-Hellman that performs key establishment, not encryption

Digest: Data segment of a specific length, calculated from a file or message, in such a way that there is a high probability that any change to the original will result in a change to the digest; usually part of a digital signature. See also Cryptographic Checksum

Digest Authentication: Permits a web client to compute MD5 hashes of the password to prove it has the password

Digital Certificate: An electronic "credit card" that establishes credentials when transacting business or other actions on the Web; issued by a certification authority and contains the individual’s name, a serial number, expiration dates, a copy of the certificate holder's public key (used for encrypting messages and digital signatures), and the digital signature of the certificate-issuing authority so that a recipient can verify that the certificate is real

Digital Envelope: Encrypted message with the encrypted session key

Digital Forensics: Umbrella term for all forms of research and analysis of computers and computer use directed at obtaining evidence of intrusion, attack, or wrongdoing; three major areas are computer forensics, forensic programming, and network forensics

Digital Signature: Hash message that uniquely identifies the message sender and proves the message hasn't changed since transmission; piece of information generated by cryptographic methods that demonstrates that an original message or file has not been deliberately altered or accidentally corrupted, and that the identity of the originator of the file can be authenticated

Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA): Asymmetric cryptographic algorithm that produces a digital signature in the form of a pair of large numbers; verifies the identity of the signer and the integrity of the signed data

Digital Signature Standard (DSS): US Government standard that specifies the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), which involves asymmetric cryptography

Digital Watermarking: Computing technique that embeds unobtrusive marks or labels (usually as bits) in digital data, such as text, graphics, images, video, or audio, for detecting or extracting the marks later; embedded bits (the digital watermark) are sometimes hidden, usually imperceptible, and always intended to be unobtrusive. See also Steganography

Direct Action Virus: Immediately loads itself into memory, infects other files, and then unloads itself from memory

Direct Connection: Form of data communication in which one computer is directly connected to another, usually via a null modem cable

Direct Contact: Transmission of infection between an infected host and susceptible host. See also Contagion; Transmission of Infection

Direct Transmission: Essentially immediate transfer of infectious agents to a receptive entry point through which human or animal infection may take place; includes touching, kissing, biting, or sexual intercourse, or by the direct projection (droplet spread) of droplet spray onto the conjunctiva or onto the mucous membranes of eyes, nose, or mouth. See also Indirect Transmission; Transmission of Infection

Disability: Temporary or long-term reduction of a person's capacity to function.

Disabled: Status which indicates that a program, job, policy, or scan is not available

Disassembly: Process of taking a binary program and deriving the source code from it

Disaster: 1) Sudden, unplanned event with the potential to cause serious damage or loss; 2) an event that makes it difficult or impossible for a business or government agency to conduct normal business activities for a predetermined period of time; 3) point in time when management decides to divert from normal operations and exercises its emergency response and recovery plan. See also Business Interruption; Outage; Catastrophe

Disaster Continuum: Life cycle of a disaster or emergency; also, emergency management cycle

Disaster Control: Measures taken before, during, or after natural or man-made disasters to reduce probability of damage, minimize its effects, and initiate recovery

Disaster Drill: Simulation of a disaster to assess and improve the effectiveness of an organization's or system's disaster preparedness or crisis management plan

Disaster Epidemiology: Study of disaster-related deaths, illnesses, and injuries in humans; includes the study of factors that affect death, illness and injury following a disaster. See also Epidemiology

Disaster Field Office (DFO): Facility established in or near the designated area to support Federal and State response and recovery operations; support the FCO and the Emergency Response Team (ERT), and where possible, the State Coordinating Officer (SCO) and support staff

Disaster Informatics: Theoretical and practical operation of processing information and communicating in a disaster situation

Disaster Management: Term that encompasses all aspects of planning for and responding to disasters, including both pre- and post disaster activities; refers to management of both the risks and consequences of disasters

Disaster, Manmade: See also Manmade Disaster

Disaster, Na-Tech: See also Na-Tech Disaster

Disaster, Natural: See also Natural Disaster

Disaster Plan: See also Disaster Preparedness Plan

Disaster POD (Point of Delivery): Hospital or health care facility that is designated to support disaster situations in a specific geographic area or jurisdiction

Disaster POD Hospitals: Lead hospital and/or health care facility which meets the following minimum criteria: designated resource hospital; designated level I or level II trauma center; maintains an established disaster plan; commits one advanced life support provider to be dispatched at the scene, if necessary; availability of two or more participating and/or associate hospitals; maintains an established two-way communication system to participating and associate hospitals; maintains a fax machine accessible to emergency department staff 24 hours/day

Disaster Preparedness Plan: Formal written action plan that coordinates the responses of various organizations, such as hospitals, in the event of a disaster within the community

Disaster-Prone: Level of risk that is related to a hazard or the immediate cause of a disaster; determined by analyzing the history of past events as well as new conditions that may increase the risk of a disaster occurring

Disaster Recovery: Activities and programs designed to return a business or government agency to an acceptable operational state; typically addresses the restoration of an organization's critical business functions

Disaster Recovery Administrator: See also BCM Coordinator; Business Recovery Planner; Disaster Recovery Planner; Disaster Recovery Coordinator

Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Coordinator: Individual or team assigned the responsibility to recover an organization or unit(s). See also Business Recovery Coordinator

Disaster Recovery Plan: Structured document that defines processes, resources, tasks and data required to manage the business recovery process following a business interruption; used to restore business processes within stated recovery time frames

Disaster Recovery Planning: Processes that typically address the recovery of technologies, systems, networks following a disaster; usually considered a component of business continuity management. See also Contingency Planning; Business Continuity Planning; Corporate Contingency Planning; Business Interruption Planning; Disaster Preparedness

Disaster Recovery Software: Application program specifically developed to facilitate the process of developing a disaster recovery plan

Disaster Recovery Teams (Business Recovery Teams): Organized and trained teams that are ready to take control of recovery operations following a disaster

Disaster Severity Scale: Measurement scale that classifies disasters by a) the radius of the disaster site, b) number of dead, c) number of wounded, d) average severity of the injuries sustained, e) impact time, and f) rescue time

Disaster Vulnerability: Measurement of a community’s ability to absorb effects of a severe disaster and to recover. See also Community; Disaster

Disclosure: 1) Act of providing access to specific information, usually without restriction; 2) relating to a philosophical debate about the value or necessity of making information about security vulnerabilities or exploits publicly available. See also Limited Disclosure, Delayed Disclosure, Security by Obscurity

Discovery: Process in which one computer attempts to locate another computer on the same network or domain; in an audit, the process of uncovering information related to the audit

Discretionary Access Control (DAC): Means of restricting access to objects based on user/group/process identity and need to know. See also Mandatory Access Control

Disease: Condition in which something is wrong with one or more bodily functions; by contrast, disease is a physiological/psychological dysfunction, illness is a subjective state in which a person feels aware of not being well; sickness is a state of social dysfunction

Disease, Iatrogenic: See also Iatrogenic Disease

Disease, Notifiable: See also Notifiable Disease

Disease Epidemic: Occurrence of more than one case of a disease, known or suspected to be of infectious or parasitic origin, that is unusually large or unexpected for the given place and time; epidemics often evolve rapidly, so that a quick response is needed. See also Disease; Epidemic; Threatened Epidemic

Disinfection: Generally, the process of removing or eliminating an infection; a) in computers, this means either the disabling of a virus's ability to operate, the removal of virus code, or the return of the system to a state identical to that prior to infection; b) in healthcare, application of appropriate medicines, chemicals or other substances that can reduce or eliminate the infectious condition; concurrent disinfection is the application of disinfectants as soon as possible after the discharge of infectious material, regardless of the source or destination; terminal disinfection is the application of disinfectants after the patient has been removed by death or to a hospital, or has ceased to be a source of infection

Disk Compression: Technique used to increase available disk storage space by compression and decompression of files; as compression is a form of encryption, scanning a compressed disk without the compression software running will typically hide viruses and other malware from a scanner

Disk Mirroring: Data replication and recovery technique where data is duplicated on separate disk subsystems in real time to ensure continuous availability of critical information. See also File Shadowing, Database Replication, Journaling

Disorder, Disease, Syndrome: By contrast to disease, a disorder is a disturbance or departure from normal health functions, e.g., of an organ or body system; a syndrome is a group of symptoms and signs that tend to appear together and collectively characterize a disorder. See also Disease

Dispatch: Implementation of a command decision to move a resource or resources from one place to another

Dispatch Center: Facility from which resources are directly assigned to an incident

Dispatch Communications System: System used to assign first responder personnel, e.g., ambulance staff. See also First Responder

Displaced Persons: Non-combatant people, forced to leave their homes because of the direct or indirect consequences of conflict, but who remain inside their country of origin

Disruption: Situation or event that interrupts or prevents the correct operation of system services and functions

Distance Vector: Used to measure the cost of routes to determine the best route that accommodates all known networks

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): See also DDoS

Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF): Industry organization that leads the development, adoption, and unification of management standards and initiatives for desktop, enterprise, and Internet environments; enables a more integrated, cost-effective, and less crisis-driven approach to management through linked solutions

Distributed Scans: Use multiple source addresses to gather information

Distribution: Measures how quickly a threat is able to spread

Diverse Routing: Transmission of voice, data, text or video through separate, unshared and non-overlapped network facilities

Division: Used to divide incidents into geographical areas of operation; identified by alphabetic characters for horizontal applications and, often, by numbers when used in buildings

Division or Group Supervisor: Title for individuals responsible for command of a Division or Group at an Incident; within an EOC, the title is Division Coordinator

DMTP: Disaster Management Training Program

DNS Spoofing: Hacking technique that assumes the DNS (Domain Name Service) name of another system by either corrupting the name service cache of a victim system, or by compromising a domain name server for a valid domain

Documentation Unit: Unit within an ICS Planning Section responsible for collecting, recording and safeguarding all documents relevant to an incident or within an EOC

DoD Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC): Document published by the US National Computer Security Center that contains a uniform set of basic requirements and evaluation classes for assessing degrees of assurance in the effectiveness of hardware and software security controls built into systems; document is US Government Standard DoD 5200.28-STD and is known as "The Orange Book"

Domain: Collection of knowledge or facts about program entities or a number of network points or addresses, identified by a name; a) Internet – name with which name server records are associated that describe sub-domains or hosts; b) Windows NT/2000 – set of network resources (applications, printers, and so forth) for a group of users

Domain Name: Identifier for locating an organization or other entity on the Internet

Domain Hijacking: Attack by which an attacker takes over a domain by first blocking access to the domain's DNS server and then putting his/her own server in its place

Domain Name System (DNS): Method in which Internet domain names are located and translated into Internet Protocol addresses

Domestic Emergency: Unplanned events, either natural or man-made, that affect public welfare and occur within the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. possessions and territories, or any other political subdivision, as a result of enemy attack, insurrection, civil disturbance, earthquake, fire, flood, or other public disasters or equivalent emergencies that endanger life and property or disrupt government

Domestic Resource Costs: Technique for evaluating between alternatives that examines the domestic resource cost (DRC) associated with an investment or operation; requires an estimate of domestic resources used in earning or saving a unit of foreign exchange

Domestic Support Operations: Authorized use of military physical and human resources to support domestic requirements

Dominate: Situation in which one condition is superior to or renders a specific impact to another

Dongle: Portable, physical, electronic device that must be attached to a computer so that a particular software program can run; a form of authentication token

DoS: See also Denial of Service

DOS (Disk Operating System): Generally any computer operating system, though currently often used as shorthand for Microsoft's MS-DOS

Dose: Amount of a medication to be taken for dealing with a specific medical situation. See also Dose (Radiation); Exposure

Dose (Radiation): Denotes the quantity (total or accumulated) of ionizing radiation or energy absorbed by a person or animal (FEMA definition). See also Dose

Dose Rate: Amount of ionizing radiation that an individual would absorb per unit of time

Dosimeter: Device that measures and registers total accumulated exposure to ionizing radiation

Download: Transfer data from one computer to another, usually over a modem or network; often refers to transferring files from the Internet or an online service to an individual's computer

Download Folder: Location in which received files are stored following file transfer

Dozer Company: Any bulldozer with a minimum complement of two persons

DMZ (De-militarized zone): Unused or unimportant area, physical or logical, between two layers of control in a defense in depth system; in particular, a firewall architecture where internal company networks are separated from publicly accessible servers, such as Web servers, which are separated from the public Internet by another firewall

DRI International: Not-for-profit organization that offers certification and educational programs for business continuity professionals; www.drii..org

Driver: Program that interprets commands for transferring to and from peripheral devices and the CPU

Droplet Nuclei: 1) Type of particle found in the spread of airborne infection; typically tiny particles that represent the dried residue of droplets, and are formed by evaporation of droplets coughed or sneezed into the air; 2) result of the conversion of infective materials to an aerosol form. See also Transmission of Infection

Droplet Precautions: 1) Procedures used in healthcare environments when placing a patient in a private room or with someone with the same infection, e.g., maintaining at least three feet between patients; 2) using a mask when working within three feet of the patient; 3) limiting movement and transport of the patient; 4) using a mask on the patient if he or she needs to be moved. See also Airborne Precautions; Standard Precautions

Dropper: Uninfected program that will install a virus on a computer system; used to distribute malware into networks

Drought: Prolonged period without rain

DSA: See also Digital Signature Algorithm

DSS: See also Digital Signature Standard

DTLS: See also Descriptive Top-Level Specification

Dual-Homed Host: System with two or more network interfaces, each of which is connected to a different network; for firewalls, a dual-homed host usually acts to block or filter some or all of the traffic trying to pass between the networks

Dual Infector: See also Multipartite

Due Care: Process that ensures a minimal level of protection is in place in accordance with industry best practices

Due Diligence: Requirement that organizations must develop and deploy a protection plan to prevent fraud and abuse, plus deploy a means to detect these conditions if they occur

DumpSec: Security tool that dumps a variety of information about a system's users, file system, registry, permissions, password policy, and services

Dumpster Diving: Obtaining passwords and corporate directories by searching through discarded media

Dynamic Link Library: Collection of small programs, any of which can be called when needed by a larger program that is running in a computer

Dynamic Routing Protocol: Lets network devices learn routes; occurs routers talk to adjacent routers, informing each other to which networks each router is currently connected

CPM Dictionary
 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z