Oh come on, are we still writing nonsense on stands at conferences and using buzzwords to attract potential customers? Well, if that’s the case, let’s have fun playing Cyber Buzzword Bingo 2024 at your event!
Turn your conference visit into a game!
So how does this work?
Click the link to open a randomised Bingo Card. walk around the conference you are at, and, every time you see one of the words, then tick it off your list. If you find them all then feel free to message me on Twitter (@SPCoulson) with the hashtag below.
The Cyber Buzzword Bingo 2024 Card:
Click Here …
Cyber Buzzword Bingo 2024
https://bit.ly/CyberBuzzwordBingo2024
The Disclaimer and Learning Point
This is not a direct pop at any one vendor or any one person. This list is just my personal musings (and others who helped with content for this blog). As such, no offence is meant and indeed minds can be changed from the original posting. If you do feel that there is an issue, contact me directly so we can discuss the issue you have.
Also please note, this is some fun and if you are in a marketing/comms team and you produce content – be aware of this list and think about the content you produce.
What do these words even mean?
Before we start, did you read the Disclaimer? Are you prepared for some sarcasm or snark? Then proceed!!
| Buzzword | The comments section |
|---|---|
| AI | The saviour of all mankind, AI. Also, you have to say AI just to sound like one of the cool kids. Let’s be real about it, most of AI that you are seeing is actually ML at best! Ask the vendor – which Algorithm they are using. The data they are pulling in, which LLM they are using. Wait for the silence! |
| Industry Leader | We’re all industry leaders … if you don’t state which industry? For creating marketing Buzzwords maybe? |
| Cy-X | It has the word Cyber or Cy … it has the letter X in it – Holy Moly, this must be amazing!! (Apart from Cytix – they actually are amazing!) |
| Russia | Really – you’re going there? |
| Phishing Simulation | Ahhh – we can add even more pain to your staff’s inboxes. Oh, and we’ll turn off security controls so they get to click them too. Surely the tech should be catching phishing attacks? Just saying! |
| Automation | We have GREP installed but that’s OK because we also LOVE false positives. |
| NextGen | Because the last generation didn’t work so we’re having another go instead. |
| SBOM | So you can really unpick all the components within a piece of software … the unicorn has pooped. (courtesy of Allie Andrews) |
| Quantum | Ooooh – the future is here, but is Quantum here yet? is it? Is it really? And you give it away in your solution… interesting. |
| Shift Left | We know WHAT that means, the reality is that no one is actually going to make that happen because devs don’t like security poking at their code. (courtesy of Mike Dovey) |
| Dark Web | The unsearchable network that somehow you are now selling a service to scan all of. Hmmm. You’re clever. Or do you actually mean, you have profiles on a couple of popular scammer websites that you use to search? Hmm, thought so. |
| AI Cloud | Yup – this piece of smoke and mirrors is out there. Go find it! |
| China | Because you have to say that at some point. |
| TLA | Three Letter Acronyms … or the absolute nonsense of words that don’t mean much. We all know it’s DNS. It’s always DNS! |
| Beyond Next-Gen | Well if Sean Atkinson says it .. then we’ll put it out there. |
| Military Grade | Ha ha ha, have you seen military IT? Try this scale instead – LINK! |
| Zero Trust | Is this some kind of Inception, because surely it means you don’t trust yourself too?! |
| Awareness | We send stuff out to bother your staff and give you graphs without understanding your staff’s knowledge or requirements! So here, have more stuff! This one has a knob on the end. |
| Security Controls | Well, if you’re going to come into my company and break everything, you might as well use your generic processes and tell us we have to do it despite it not working. (courtesy of Craig Giles) |
| Simulation | Because no one knows how the actual thing works! |
| Triangulation | You know who you are .. or as your salesperson said – it’s the magic fairy dust we sprinkle on top. |
| GenAI | Because we don’t have Gen AI yet, but hey ho, doesn’t stop us saying it though! (courtesy of Tom Quinn) |
| Warfare | Because your printer won’t kill you first! |
| Nation-State | Because we don’t want to annoy China or Russia just in case. |
| -Centric | Because saying it on its own doesn’t work so you have to add Centric to make people understand that it is important. |
| Full Spectrum | Hahahahaha – now that is comedy gold! |
| Dashboard | Non-configurable Elastic graph that doesn’t actually help. |
| Threat Intelligence | When we actually meant Threat Data and not much-added intelligence. |
| Low Code | We downloaded GitHub and found some interesting stuff!! But we didn’t write any of it. Don’t ask us how it works! |
| DNS | Because it is ALWAYS DNS!! So. not patching your out-of-date software or the fact the security software doesn’t work. |
| NextGen AI | We’ve barely got current AI never mind the next generation! (courtesy of Gerard Barrett) |
| Gartner | Well, if the rumours are right, then we know you are a pay-to-play winner! |
| SASE | Spend it All to Secure Everything … oh wait it doesn’t mean that? You sure? (courtesy of Sean and Tom) |
| Single Pane of Glass | Surely you’d want double glazing to be more efficient?! (courtesy of Matt Copperwaite) |
| Crypto | Because the CEO has gambled all our investment money on Bitcoin. |
| Holistic | My crystals will protect you. Ohmmmm. |
| Compliance | Because one click always makes you compliant… |
| COVID | We couldn’t afford to buy more marketing materials. |
| Cloud-Based | Because we can’t afford our own data centre and we like the Patriot Act. |
| SIEM | I miss pew pew maps. |
The end of Cyber Buzzword Bingo 2024
And there we have it.
A whole load of marketing buzzwords, totally overused and totally over-hyped. You can clearly see all the variants of AI in there and it really is quite crazy how fast vendors have jumped on that band wagon!
Do you think it’ll improve in 2025?
See you at Infosec, come and say hi!
Stuart
Useful Links:
Conference Survival Guide: https://www.hiddentext.co.uk/conference-survival-guide-infosec-europe-2024/
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