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Recent years have seen an explosive growth of the Internet. When the
Internet passed from government and academic realms to the public sector,
it brought along a laissez-faire attitude about security. Its explosive
growth, flaws in its basic structure, its facilitation of instant access to information
repositories, and its widespread availability has made it increasingly
vulnerable. There have been many malicious attempts, or attacks to exploit this
vulnerability of the Internet from all over the world; the attacks on the Internet
have kept pace with the growth of the Internet.
The natural instinct of individuals, organizations, and nations to protect
themselves against attacks and operational intrusions or upsets in the flow of
information has spawned a high level of interest, research activity, and technological
developments in the Internet security field. New security protocols,
and new countermeasures against attacks that break, slow, or inconvenience
users and organizations are evolving every day. These developments constantly
introduce new terms and concepts into the Internet security vocabulary. Although
nascent, the field has gained sufficient maturity that its vocabulary can
begin to be standardized for common use by professionals. This dictionary is
an effort to organize and define these terms precisely and coherently. |