CISA Acronyms

The CISA candidate should be familiar with the following list of acronyms published in the
Candidate’s Guide to the CISA® Examination and Certification. These acronyms are the only
stand-alone abbreviations used in examination questions.

ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange
Bit Binary digit
CASE Computer-aided system engineering
CCTV Closed-circuit television
CPU Central processing unit
DBA Database administrator
DBMS Database management system
EDI Electronic data interchange
FTP File Transfer Protocol
HTTP Hypertext Transmission Protocol
HTTPS Secured Hypertext Transmission Protocol
ID Identification
IDS Intrusion detection system
IP Internet protocol
IS Information systems
ISO International Organization for Standardization
IT Information technology
LAN Local area network
PBX Private branch (business) exchange
PC Personal computer/microcomputer
PCR Program change request
PDA Personal digital assistant
PERT Program Evaluation Review Technique
PIN Personal identification number
PKI Public key infrastructure
RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
RFID Radio frequency identification
SDLC System development life cycle
SSL Secure Sockets Layer
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
UPS Uninterruptible power supply
VoIP Voice-over Internet Protocol
WAN Wide area network
In addition to the aforementioned acronyms, candidates may also wish to become familiar with
the following additional acronyms. Should any of these abbreviations be used in exam questions,
their meanings would be included when the acronym appears.
4GL Fourth-generation language
ACID Atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability
ACL Access control list
AES Advanced Encryption Standard
AH Authentication header
AI Artificial intelligence
AICPA American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
ALE Annual loss expectancy
ALU Arithmetic-logic unit
ANSI American National Standards Institute
CISA Acronyms – Page 2
API Application programming interface
ARP Address Resolution Protocol
ASIC Application-specific integrated circuit
ATDM Asynchronous time division multiplexing
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode
ATM Automated teller machine
B-to-B Business-to-business
B-to-C Business-to-consumer
B-to-E Business-to-employee
B-to-G Business-to-government
BCI Business Continuity Institute
BCM Business continuity management
BCP Business continuity plan
BCP Business continuity planning
BDA Business dependency assessment
BI Business intelligence
BIA Business impact analysis
BIMS Biometric Information Management and Security
BIOS Basic Input/Output System
BIS Bank for International Settlements
BLP Bypass label process
BNS Backbone network services
BOM Bill of materials
BOMP Bill of materials processor
BPR Business process reengineering
BRP Business recovery (or resumption) plan
BSC Balanced scorecard
C-to-G Consumer-to-government
CA Certificate authority
CAAT Computer-assisted audit technique
CAD Computer-assisted design
CAE Computer-assisted engineering
CAM Computer-aided manufacturing
CASE Computer-aided software engineering
CCK Complementary Code Keying
CCM Constructive Cost Model
CD Compact disk
CD-R Compact disk-recordable
CD-RW Compact disk-rewritable
CDDF Call Data Distribution Function
CDPD Cellular Digital Packet Data
CEO Chief executive officer
CERT Computer emergency response team
CGI Common gateway interface
CIA Confidentiality, integrity and availability
CIAC Computer Incident Advisory Capability
CICA Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants
CIM Computer-integrated manufacturing
CIO Chief information officer
CIS Continuous and intermittent simulation
CISO Chief information security officer
CMDB Configuration management database
CMM Capability Maturity Model
CMMI Capability Maturity Model Integration
CNC Computerized Numeric Control
COCOMO2 Constructive Cost Model
CISA Acronyms – Page 3
CODASYL Conference on Data Systems Language
COM Component Object Model
COM/DCOM Component Object Model/Distributed Component Object Model
COOP Continuity of operations plan
CORBA Common Object Request Broker Architecture
CoS Class of service
COSO Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission
CPM Critical Path Methodology
CPO Chief privacy officer
CPS Certification practice statement
CRC Cyclic redundancy check
CRL Certificate revocation list
CRM Customer relationship management
CSA Control self-assessment
CSF Critical success factor
CSIRT Computer security incident response team
CSMA/CA Carrier-sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance
CSMA/CD Carrier-sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection
CSO Chief security officer
CSU-DSU Channel service unit/digital service unit
DAC Discretionary access control
DASD Direct access storage device
DAT Digital audio tape
DBMS Database management system
DCE Data communications equipment
DCE Distributed computing environment
DCOM Distributed Component Object Model (Microsoft)
DCT Discrete Cosine Transform
DD/DS Data dictionary/directory system
DDL Data Definition Language
DDN Digital Divide Network
DDoS Distributed denial of service
DECT Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications
DES Data Encryption Standard
DFD Data flow diagram
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DID Direct inward dial
DIP Document image processing
DLL Dynamic link library
DMS Disk management system
DMZ Demilitarized zone
DNS Domain name system
DoS Denial of service
DOSD Data-oriented system development
DRII Disaster Recovery Institute International
DRM Digital rights management
DRP Disaster recovery plan
DRP Disaster recovery planning
DSL Digital subscriber lines
DSS Decision support systems
DSSS Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)
DTE Data terminal equipment
DTR Data terminal ready
DVD Digital video disc
DVD-HD Digital video disc-high definition/high density
DW Data warehouse
CISA Acronyms – Page 4
EA Enterprise architecture
EAC Estimates at completion
EAI Enterprise application integration
EAM Embedded audit module
EAP Extensible Authentication Protocol
EBCDIC Extended Binary-coded for Decimal Interchange Code
EC Electronic commerce
ECC Elliptic Curve Cryptography
EDFA Enterprise data flow architecture
EDI Electronic data interchange
EER Equal-error rate
EFT Electronic funds transfer
EIGRP Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
EJB Enterprise java beans
EMI Electromagnetic interference
EMRT Emergency response time
ERD Entity relationship diagram
ERP Enterprise resource planning
ESP Encapsulating security payload
EVA Earned value analysis
FAR False-acceptance rate
FAT File allocation table
FC Fibre channels
FDDI Fiber Distributed Data Interface
FDM Frequency division multiplexing
FEA Federal enterprise architecture
FEMA Federal Emergency Management Association (USA)
FER Failure-to-enroll rate
FERC Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (USA)
FFIEC Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (USA)
FFT Fast Fourier Transform
FHSS Frequency-hopping spread spectrum
FIPS Federal Information Processing Standards
FP Function point
FPA Function point analysis
FRAD Frame relay assembler/disassembler
FRB Federal Reserve Board (USA)
FRR False-rejection rate
GAS Generalized audit software
Gb Gigabit
GB Gigabyte
GID Group ID
GIS Geographic information systems
GPS Global positioning system
GSM Global system for mobile communications
GUI Graphical user interface
HA High availability
HD-DVD High definition/high density-digital video disc
HDLC High-level data link control
HIPAA Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (USA)
HIPO Hierarchy input-process-output
HMI Human machine interfacing
HTML Hypertext Markup Language
HW/SW Hardware/software
I/O Input/output
I&A Identification and authentication
CISA Acronyms – Page 5
ICMP Internet Control Message Protocol
ICT Information and communication technologies
IDE Integrated development environment
IDEF1X Integration Definition for Information Modeling
IETF Internet Engineering Task Force
IMS Integrated manufacturing systems
IPF Information processing facility
IPL Initial program load
IPMA International Project Management Association
IPRs Intellectual property rights
IPS Intrusion prevention system
IPSec IP Security
IPX Internetwork Packet Exchange
IR Incident response
IR Infrared
IRC Internet relay chat
IrDA Infrared Data Association
IRM Incident response management
IS/DRP IS disaster recovery planning
ISAKMP/ Internet Security Association and Key Oakley Management Protocol/Oakley
Oakley
ISAM Indexed Sequential Access Method
ISDN Integrated services digital network
ISP Internet service provider
ITF Integrated test facility
ITGI IT Governance Institute
ITIL Information Technology Infrastructure Library
ITSM IT service management
ITT Invitation to tender
ITU International Telecommunications Union
IVR Interactive voice response
JIT Just in time
Kb Kilobit
KB Kilobyte
KB Knowledge base
KGI Key goal indicator
KPI Key performance indicator
L2TP Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol
LCP Link Control Protocol
M&A Mergers and acquisition
MAC Mandatory access control
MAC Message Authentication Code
MAC Address Media Access Control Address
MAN Metropolitan area network
MAP Manufacturing accounting and production
MIS Management information system
MODEM Modulator/demodulator
MOS Maintenance out of service
MPLS Multiprotocol label switching
MRP Manufacturing resources planning
MSAUs Multistation access units
MTBF Mean time between failures
MTS Microsoft’s Transaction Server
MTTR Mean time to repair
NAP Network access point
NAS Network access server
CISA Acronyms – Page 6
NAS Network attached storage
NAT Network address translation
NCP Network Control Protocol
NDA Nondisclosure agreement
NFPA National Fire Protection Agency (USA)
NFS Network File System
NIC Network interface card
NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA)
NNTP Network News Transfer Protocol
NSP Name Server Protocol
NSP Network service provider
NT New technology
NTFS NT file system
NTP Network Time Protocol
OBS Object breakdown structure
OCSP Online Certificate Status Protocol
ODC On-demand computing
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
OEP Occupant emergency plan
OLAP Online analytical processing
OOSD Object-oriented system development
ORB Object request broker
OS Operating system
OSI Open Systems Interconnection
OSPF Open Shortest Path First
PAD Packet assembler/disassembler
PAN Personal area network
PBX Private branch exchange
PDA Personal digital assistant
PDCA Plan-do-check-act
PDN Public data network
PER Package-enabled reengineering
PICS Platform for Internet Content Selection
PID Process ID
PID Project initiation document
PKI Public key infrastructure
PLC Programmable logic controllers
PMBOK Project Management Body of Knowledge
PMI Project Management Institute
POC Proof of concept
POP Proof of possession
POS Point of sale (or Point-of-sale systems)
POTS Plain old telephone service
PPP Point-to-point Protocol
PPPoE Point-to-point Protocol Over Ethernet
PPTP Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol
PR Public relations
PRD Project request document
PRINCE2 Projects in Controlled Environments 2
PROM Programmable Read-only Memory
PSTN Public switched telephone network
PVC Permanent virtual circuit
QA Quality assurance
QAT Quality assurance testing
RA Registration authority
RAD Rapid application development
CISA Acronyms – Page 7
RADIUS Remote Access Dial-in User Service
RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
RAM Random access memory
RAS Remote access service
RBAC Role-based access control
RDBMS Relational database management system
RF Radio frequencies
RFI Request for information
RFP Request for proposal
RIP Routing Information Protocol
RMI Remote method invocation
ROI Return on investment
ROLAP Relational online analytical processing
ROM Read-only memory
RPC Remote procedure call
RPO Recovery point objective
RSN Robust secure network
RST Reset
RTO Recovery time objective
RTU Remote terminal unit
RW Rewritable
S/HTTP Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol
S/MIME Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
SA Security Association
SAN The SANS Institute
SANS SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security
SAS Statement on Auditing Standards
SBC Session border controller
SCADA Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
SCARF Systems Control Audit Review File
SCARF/EAM Systems Control Audit Review File and Embedded Audit Modules
SCM Supply chain management
SCOR Supply chain operations reference
SD/MMC Secure digital multimedia card
SDLC System development life cycle
SDO Service delivery objective
SEC Securities and Exchange Commission (USA)
SET Secure electronic transactions
SIP Service improvement plan
SLA Service level agreement
SLIP Serial Line Internet Protocol
SLM Service level management
SLOC Source lines of code
SMARRT Specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, results-oriented and timely
SME Subject matter expert
SMF System management facility
SMTP Simple Mail Transport Protocol
SNA Systems network architecture
SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol
SO Security officer
SOA Service-oriented architectures
SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol
SOHO Small office-home office
SOW Statement of work
SPI Security parameter index
SPICE Software Process Improvement and Capability dEetermination
CISA Acronyms – Page 8
SPOC Single point of contact
SPOOL Simultaneous peripheral operations online
SQL Structured Query Language
SSH Secure Shell
SSID Service Set Identifier
SSO Single sign-on
SVC Switched virtual circuits
SYSGEN System generation
TACACS Terminal Access Control Access Control System
TCO Total cost of ownership
TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
TCP/UDP Transmission Control Protocol/User Datagram Protocol
TDM Time-division multiplexing
TELNET Teletype network
TES Terminal emulation software
TFTP Trivial File Transport Protocol
TKIP Temporal Key Integrity Protocol
TLS Transport layer security
TMS Tape management system
TP monitors Transaction processing monitors
TQM Total quality management
TR Technical report
UAT User acceptance testing
UBE Unsolicited bulk email
UDDI Universal description, discovery and integration
UDP User Datagram Protocol
UID User ID
UML Unified Modeling Language
URI Uniform resource identifier
URL Universal resource locator
URN Uniform resource name
USB Universal Serial Bus
VLAN Virtual local area network
VoIP Voice-over IP
VPN Virtual private network
WAP Wireless Application Protocol
WBS Work breakdown structure
WEP Wired Equivalent Privacy
WLAN Wireless local area network
WML Wireless Markup Language
WORM Write Once and Read Many
WP Work package
WPA Wi-Fi Protected Access
WPAN Wireless personal area network
WSDL Web Services Description Language
WWAN Wireless wide area network
WWW World Wide Web
X-to-X Exchange-to-exchange
XBRL Extensible Business Reporting Language
XML Extensible Markup Language
XOR Exclusive-OR
Xquery XML query
XSL Extensible Stylesheet Language