Internet and Computer Security: Protect Yourself Online!

Least privilege is the principle that every user, process and system should hold only the access required for its current task, and no more.

A firewall is a control that allows or blocks network traffic according to rules about its source, destination, protocol and, in modern forms, its content and the application it belongs to.

A virtual private network carries traffic through an encrypted tunnel over a public network so that a remote device or site behaves as though it were connected to a private one.

Network address translation rewrites the addresses and ports in packets as they cross a network boundary, most commonly so that many devices with private addresses can share one public address to reach the internet.

DHCP is the protocol by which a device joining a network asks for and receives an address, a subnet mask, a default gateway and DNS servers from a server, for a limited lease period, so that nobody has to configure addresses by hand.

A wireless LAN connects devices to a network over radio using the 802.11 family of standards, through access points that bridge the wireless medium onto the wired network and enforce the authentication and encryption that the shared airwaves demand.

A VPS is a software-defined slice of one physical machine that behaves as a server in its own right, with its own operating system, reserved CPU, memory and disk, and administrative access down to the kernel.

A dedicated server is an entire physical computer rented by a single customer, with no hypervisor taking a share and no other tenants on the hardware, chosen when consistent performance, specific components or provable isolation matter more than the ability to resize in seconds.

Managed hosting is any plan where the provider runs the server on your behalf, covering updates, hardening, monitoring, backups and tuning, so the thing being sold is administration time with a machine attached rather than the machine itself.