AI cybersecurity, in plain English.
Definitions for the terms that come up when companies evaluate AI cybersecurity experts and solution providers — written for buyers who need precision, not marketing fluff.
Managed Security Service Provider
(MSSP)A third-party provider that operates security infrastructure — typically SIEM, log monitoring, and compliance reporting — on behalf of a customer, often co-managed with an internal team.
Read definitionManaged Detection and Response
(MDR)A managed service focused on 24/7 threat detection, investigation, and active response — usually delivered on top of the customer's EDR or XDR tooling.
Read definitionManaged Service Provider
(MSP)A provider that manages IT infrastructure — endpoints, networks, productivity tooling, helpdesk — for a customer, usually on a flat monthly per-user fee.
Read definitionSecurity Operations Center
(SOC)The team and tooling responsible for continuous security monitoring, detection, investigation, and response — either in-house, fully outsourced, or co-managed.
Read definitionSecurity Information and Event Management
(SIEM)A platform that ingests logs and security telemetry from across the environment, correlates events, and surfaces alerts for SOC analysts to investigate.
Read definitionEndpoint Detection and Response
(EDR)Software installed on endpoints that records process, file, network, and identity activity and enables analysts to detect, investigate, and contain attacks at the endpoint.
Read definitionExtended Detection and Response
(XDR)A platform that unifies detection and response across endpoint, network, identity, email, and cloud telemetry — broader than EDR, narrower than a full SIEM.
Read definitionVirtual Chief Information Security Officer
(vCISO)A fractional or part-time CISO engagement delivered as a service — typically by an MSSP, consultancy, or specialist firm — to organizations that cannot justify a full-time hire.
Read definitionSecurity Orchestration, Automation and Response
(SOAR)Tooling that automates SOC workflows — playbooks, enrichment, response actions — to reduce analyst toil and shorten MTTR.
Read definitionCybersecurity Broker
A specialist intermediary that matches enterprise security buyers (CISOs, security committees) with vetted cybersecurity vendors, typically compensated per qualified meeting or closed deal rather than via retainer.
Read definitionIdeal Customer Profile
(ICP)A precise definition of the accounts most likely to buy: firmographics, technographics, security maturity, buying triggers, and disqualifiers.
Read definitionAccount-Based Marketing
(ABM)A go-to-market motion that targets a finite list of named accounts with coordinated marketing, sales, and executive outreach — instead of broad lead capture.
Read definitionIntent Data
Signals indicating an account is actively researching or evaluating a category — derived from content consumption, search behavior, job postings, funding events, or third-party panels.
Read definitionBuyer Committee
The group of stakeholders — typically 5 to 9 people in enterprise cybersecurity deals — who must align before a vendor is approved and a contract is signed.
Read definitionPay-per-Meeting
A pricing model where a lead-gen partner or broker is paid only for qualified sales meetings delivered against a documented qualification rubric, with replacement guarantees for no-shows or out-of-ICP meetings.
Read definitionPipeline Generation
The end-to-end function — outbound, inbound, partner, and event sourcing — responsible for creating qualified sales opportunities, typically measured in dollars of new ARR opportunity per quarter.
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