Glossary
The MSP world is acronym-heavy. Hover any underlined term anywhere on the site for a quick definition; the full entries live here.
A
- Able Moose Accounting
The recurring fictional MSP customer used across this site's lessons, a single company that scales from small business to mid-market to enterprise across the Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced courses.
- allowlist
An explicit list of domains, IPs, applications, or senders that should be permitted even when broader rules would block them.
- anycast
A routing technique where the same IP address is announced from many physical locations, and the network sends each user to the nearest one.
- AppAware
DNSFilter's feature that maps DNS activity to known applications, surfacing app usage and shadow IT through the filter.
- Application allowlisting
A default-deny posture where only explicitly approved binaries are allowed to execute. Anything else (script, installer, dropped DLL) is blocked at the kernel before it runs.
- audit mode
A configuration mode where rules are evaluated and logged but NOT enforced. Lets you see what would happen before turning enforcement on.
B
C
- Campaign banner
An Exclaimer time-boxed banner image with a hyperlink and start/end dates, appended after a signature; one Campaign at a time, server-side only on Gmail.
- captive portal
The web page that public Wi-Fi networks force users through before letting their device reach the internet.
- category
A label DNSFilter (and similar tools) assigns to a domain so policies can block or allow whole groups of sites at once instead of one-by-one.
- Cyber Hero
ThreatLocker's 24/7 managed approval service. Cyber Hero engineers triage end-user approval requests on the customer's behalf, replying within ThreatLocker's published SLA.
D
- disclaimer
Plain-text legal text appended to outbound email after the signature, configurable as a standalone Disclaimer object, a Disclaimer signature element, or text inside the template.
- DNS
Domain Name System, the internet's phonebook. Translates human-readable names like "example.com" into IP addresses computers actually connect to.
- DNS filtering
Blocking risky or policy-violating domains at the DNS resolver layer, before a TCP connection is ever attempted.
- DNS over HTTPS
A DNS transport that wraps queries inside HTTPS, encrypting them and making them indistinguishable from normal web traffic.
- DNS resolver
The DNS server a device asks for name-to-IP lookups. Whoever controls the resolver controls (and sees) everything.
- Dynamic DNS
A service that maps a fixed hostname to an IP address that changes, typically used when a network's public IP isn't static.
E
- EDR
Endpoint Detection and Response, agent-based security that watches process, file, and network behaviour for malicious patterns and gives a SOC the ability to isolate or roll back.
- Elevation Control
Per-application local-admin elevation that lets a standard user run a specific approved app with admin rights, without giving the user admin rights generally.
H
I
J
L
M
- MDR
A security service where humans (a SOC) actively monitor your EDR/SIEM and respond to incidents on your behalf, 24/7.
- Meeting Branding
An Exclaimer Pro feature that applies branded nametag overlays and backgrounds to user video calls in Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom.
- MFA
Requiring a second factor (app code, hardware key, biometric) beyond the password to verify identity.
- Microsoft 365
Microsoft's bundled cloud productivity suite. Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and the Office desktop apps, identity-anchored in Entra ID.
- MSP
Managed Service Provider, a company that delivers ongoing IT services to client businesses for a recurring fee, typically per-user or per-device.
O
P
- policy
A reusable bundle of rules, what to block, what to allow, what to log, applied to one or more groups of users, devices, or sites.
- print driver
The software that translates an application's print output into the printer's native command language.
- print queue
A logical destination on a computer that maps a printer name to a print driver and a target device, where jobs wait before they print.
- Printix Anywhere
A virtual print queue that lets a user roam between Printix-managed printers and release the same document at whichever one they walk up to.
- Printix Go
A vendor application that installs on a printer's touchscreen so users sign in with a card or ID code and release jobs without a phone.
- Process Insights
Huntress's process-monitoring service. The agent ships process activity to the platform; the SOC analyses it for malicious or suspicious behaviour using rules mapped against frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK.
- PSA
Professional Services Automation, the ticketing, time-tracking, billing, and client/contract system of record for an MSP.
R
- Ransomware Canaries
Decoy files Huntress drops on protected endpoints to detect ransomware. When a ransomware encryptor touches one, the agent fires an early signal before the encryptor reaches real customer data.
- Ringfencing
Constraining what an allowed application can do. ThreatLocker's term for application-level boundaries on file access, network reach, registry, and child processes.
- RMM
Remote Monitoring & Management, agent-based software an MSP installs on every endpoint to inventory, patch, alert, automate, and run scripts at scale.
S
- SAT
Security Awareness Training. Scheduled training assignments and simulated phishing campaigns delivered to end users to reduce the human-error surface in a security stack.
- secure release
Hold a print job in a queue until the user authenticates at the printer, so the document only comes out when they are standing there.
- serverless print
Print infrastructure delivered without an on-prem print server, with drivers, queues, and routing handled in the cloud and a workstation agent.
- SIEM
A platform that ingests security-relevant logs from many sources (firewalls, endpoints, identity, OS event logs) for correlation, alerting, retention, and investigation.
- signature rule
A condition on an Exclaimer signature controlling whether it applies to a given email, evaluated across Senders, Exceptions, Recipients, Date/Time, and Advanced Rules tabs.
- Signatures Tester
An Exclaimer simulator that walks a chosen sender and recipient against every enabled signature and reports which rules passed or failed, without sending real mail.
- sinkhole
Returning a deliberately wrong answer (or a controlled IP) for a DNS query so the client never reaches the real (malicious) destination.
- SLA
A contracted commitment to a measurable response or resolution time, scoped by ticket priority and business hours.
- SOC
A staffed team that monitors security telemetry around the clock, triages alerts, investigates suspected compromise, and contains active threats. The "managed" part of MDR / Managed EDR.
- split-tunnel VPN
A VPN configuration that routes only some traffic through the VPN and the rest directly through the local network.
- Storage Control
Granular access policy for removable media and file shares. Lets you allow specific USB device serials or specific UNC paths while denying the rest.
T
- tenant
A logically-isolated customer environment inside a multi-tenant SaaS, your DNSFilter org, the client's M365 tenant, the RMM customer object.
- ThreatLocker Detect
ThreatLocker's telemetry-driven detection module. Rules evaluate event-log, network, and policy signals to fire alerts or automated responses when defined conditions appear.
- ticket
A unit of trackable work in the PSA, every customer interaction, alert response, or request becomes one.
U
- Unified Audit
ThreatLocker's central activity log. Every policy match across every module (Application Control, Storage, Network, Elevation) lands here with a Permit, Deny, or Ringfenced verdict.
- Universal Allow / Block list
In DNSFilter, an organisation-wide allow or block list whose entries apply to every Filtering Policy in that organisation.
- Unwanted Access
Huntress ITDR feature for managing logins from unfamiliar countries and VPNs. Login events that don't match a user's Microsoft Entra usage location or an Expected rule become escalations the partner resolves by creating a rule.