D

Data Encryption Standard

See DES.

DDoS attack

Distributed denial-of-service attack. An attack involving multiple hosts in an attempt to cause loss of service availability to users.

demilitarized zone

See DMZ.

denial of service

See DoS.

DES

Data Encryption Standard. A method of bulk, symmetric data encryption which uses a 64-bit key to every 64-bit block of data but only has an effective key strength of 56 bits.

DHCP

Dynamic Host Control Protocol. A communications protocol which allows the assignment of IP addresses and other network configuration in an organization's network to be automated.

DHTML

Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language. A technique for creating interactive websites by using a combination of static language HTML, a client-side scripting language, and the style definition language Cascading Style Sheets.

dictionary attacks

A password-guessing technique that usually involves use of a precompiled word list.

distributed denial-of-service attack

See DDoS attack.

DMZ

Demilitarized zone. A network area that sits between the internal network of an organization and (usually) the Internet.

DNS

Domain Name System. A system that stores and translates the names of network nodes to their corresponding IP addresses.

domain controller

A server in Windows networking that is responsible for servicing authentication requests to the Windows domain.

Domain Name System

See DNS.

DoS

Denial of service. An attack on a computer system or network that typically causes the loss of network connectivity and services by consuming the entire bandwidth or overloading the available resources of the victim system.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

See DHCP.

Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language

See DHTML.