Things used interchangeably that are not

I keep seeing security "professionals" mixing and matching terms interchangeably that are not.  I can understand this confusion from a user or a PHB, but not from a security professional.   I mix conflating these terms should result in automatic disbarment of whatever the latest security certification that person is holding.  Considering how tricky security and assurance work already is, it'd be really nice if we all used the same terms for some of the most basic things we do.

The terms I most often see conflated or misused for each other are:


Privacy and Confidentiality
Privacy relates to a person, Confidentiality relates to information about a person.  It gets awkward when folks ask for a privacy policy when they really mean confidentiality policy.   A privacy policy would talk about how I handle (collect, use, retain and disclose) someone’s data.  A confidentiality policy talks about how I protect it.


Vulnerability scan and Penetration test
You can often get a vuln scan as part of a pen-test, but they really aren't the same thing.  The tip-off should be the word "penetration" which means someone is actually breaking in instead of just looking at you.   One usually costs a lot more than the other as well.  Bonus: a port scan is part of a vulnerability scan, but not the whole thing.




Vulnerability/Threat/Impact and Risk
I'm a proud member of SIRA, where a bunch of nerds sit around to argue about different risk models and which fits/works best in what situation.  But you know what?  I'd be happy if the entire industry just started using the most basic simplistic formula for risk: Risk = Threat × Probability × Impact.  Sadly, what I see folks doing is:

1. "We need to stop doing this because APTs are dangerous" -> Risk = Threat
2. "We need to shut down email because half our messages have malware in them" -> Risk = Probability
3. "We need to do something about DDOS because our site could go down." -> Risk = Impact

No.  You aren't thinking this through.  And you're confusing the users.  Stop it.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Again, the tip-off is in the words themselves.  Disaster recovery is about recovering the IT systems after a disaster.  Just the IT systems.  Business continuity involves recovering the entire business process.  BC can include DR but not the other way around.

2 factor and additional authentication
You know when you login to your web banking from a new computer and it suddenly asks you what high school you went to?  That's not 2-factor authentication... because that's just more of "something you know." It's layered or risk-based or adaptive authentication.  But it's not a different factor so it's not as strong.  So stop thinking that it is.

What do you see security professionals mixing up all the time?