Cyber Security Acronyms (G)

GDPR.   General Data Protection Regulation.  A law that protects privacy and establishes the guidelines on how personal data can be collected and processed in the European Union and associated jurisdictions, but also covering all websites that attract EU residents, regardless of where such websites originate. The GDPR compels all covered organisations to disclose how they use consumer data, and provides consumers with more control over how organisations can handle and share their personal information.

GEOINT.   Geospatial Intelligence.  The collection and analysis of imagery, signals, and other data types about the Earth’s physical features and geographically-linked human activities on all types of physical environments (sea, air, land, and space). Among other things, GEOINT helps IT security professionals map cyber attacks in real time, detect suspicious activities early, identify the origin of specific threats, track the digital footprints of persons of interest, and predict future attacks.

GIF.   Graphics Interchange Format.   A file format for images that supports lossless compression and simple animation. Malicious entities can inject malware into shareable GIFs.

GNU.  GNU’s Not Unix.   A large collection of free software that can function as a stand-alone computer operating system or as working components of other operating systems. Users can freely run, study, distribute, and modify all GNU software without any legal constraints.

GPG.   GNU Privacy Guard.    A free-software implementation of the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program that runs as a command-line tool and is offered as an alternative to a similar cryptographic software suite developed by Symantec. GPG meets the OpenPGP standards set by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

GPO.   Group Policy Object.   A collection of settings, configurations, and preferences defined for a specific group of users, applications, computers, and other resources within a (Windows) Active Directory environment. GPOs help centralise, streamline, and optimise the management of such groupings.

GPP.   Group Policy Preferences.  A feature of Windows Server that extends the functionalities of Group Policy Objects (GPO) by allowing a more granular and targeted configuration approach and providing advanced settings for file folders, drives, and connected peripherals such as printers.

GRC.   Governance, Risk, and Compliance.   The field encompassing the practices, systems, and strategies an organisation adopts for managing three interdependent business essentials: corporate governance, enterprise risks, and regulatory compliance. It is sometimes rendered as GRMC which stands for Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance.

GRE.   Generic Routing Encapsulation.  A tunneling protocol developed by Cisco Systems for encapsulating or wrapping a data packet within another data packet for the purpose of routing a wide range of network layer protocols over IP networks.

GSM.   Global System for Mobile.   A trademark and a set of protocols and standards that govern second-generation (2G) mobile cellular networks, first developed and deployed in Europe.

GUI.   Graphical User Interface.  A visual and interactive mechanism by which a user can navigate, control, and manipulate electronic devices and computer software. GUIs are diffrentiated from and are considered a more user-friendly alternative to command-line interfaces.

GUID.   Globally Unique Identifier.  A 128-bit label used to identify different types of objects in computer systems. Also rendered as Universally Unique Identifier (UUID).