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Cybersecurity vocabulary · Governance, Risk and Compliance

Security control

Meaning in cybersecurity, with examples

nounCommon term

In cybersecurity, security control means: Any safeguard, whether technical, administrative or physical, that reduces a security risk, such as a firewall, a policy, a training course or a locked door.

In Turkish: güvenlik kontrolü, güvenlik önlemi

How it is used

Standards such as ISO/IEC 27001 (Annex A) and NIST SP 800-53 are essentially lists of controls. Controls are designed, implemented and tested, and described as preventive, detective or corrective. Auditors check whether a control is in place and operating effectively.

Example sentences

  1. MFA is our main security control against stolen passwords.

  2. The auditor asked for evidence that the security control had worked all year.

Common collocations

  • implement a control
  • preventive control
  • detective control
  • compensating control
  • control framework
  • riskThe chance that a threat will use a weakness and cause harm, combined with how serious that harm would be for the organisation.
  • auditA formal, independent review that checks whether an organisation's security controls and processes meet a standard, a law or its own policies.
  • complianceThe state of following the laws, regulations, standards and internal policies that apply to an organisation, and being able to prove it.
  • mitigateTo reduce the likelihood or impact of a risk or attack when it cannot be removed completely, for example with a workaround or an extra control.
  • security policyA formal document, approved by management, that sets the rules an organisation follows to protect its information, systems and people.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Governance, Risk and Compliance

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