At Cyber Kindness, we have put together a helpful glossary of terms:
Active Support
Active support means standing with someone who is being treated unfairly, excluded, targeted or harmed. It can include checking in on them privately, helping them access support, challenging poor behaviour safely or signposting them to someone who can help.
Active support does not mean escalating conflict, attacking others or taking revenge on someone’s behalf.
Allyship
Allyship is the ongoing practice of supporting people who may face exclusion, discrimination, bullying or barriers to opportunity. It is not just about saying the right thing. It is about taking thoughtful, consistent action that helps make spaces safer, fairer and more respectful.
In Cyber Kindness, allyship means using your voice, influence or position to support others without speaking over them.
Bullying
Bullying is repeated behaviour that intimidates, undermines, humiliates, isolates or harms another person. It can happen in workplaces, communities, professional networks, events, online spaces and private conversations.
Bullying may include personal attacks, exclusion, public shaming, threats, mockery, spreading rumours or using someone’s mistakes against them.
Calling Out Bad Ideas
Calling out a bad idea means challenging something that is inaccurate, unsafe, unethical or harmful. It is not the same as attacking the person who shared it.
Cyber Kindness supports honest challenge, professional standards and robust debate. The aim should be to improve understanding, reduce harm and protect people, not to humiliate someone.
Chatham House Rule
The Chatham House Rule is a meeting approach that allows people to use the information shared in a discussion, but not reveal who said it or identify the people involved.
In Cyber Kindness sessions, this can help people speak more openly while protecting privacy, safety and trust.
Coercive Control
Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour that seeks to dominate, manipulate, isolate or control another person. It can happen in personal, workplace or professional settings, and may involve intimidation, threats, emotional manipulation, surveillance, isolation or pressure.
Cyber Kindness recognises that some people may be dealing with difficult or unsafe relationships behind the scenes. This is why duty of care, signposting and safe ways to step back matter.
Constructive Challenge
Constructive challenge means questioning, disagreeing or offering a different view in a respectful and useful way.
It focuses on the issue, not the person. For example, instead of saying “you are wrong” or “you clearly do not understand this”, a constructive challenge might say: “That is an interesting point. Have you also considered this perspective?”
Cyber Kindness
Cyber Kindness is the belief that how people are treated is not separate from security. It shapes whether people feel safe enough to ask questions, report mistakes, share concerns, challenge poor behaviour and support others.
Cyber Kindness is not about avoiding difficult conversations. It is about creating a healthier, safer and more professional cyber security culture.
Diversity
Diversity means recognising and including people with different backgrounds, identities, experiences, perspectives and ways of thinking.
In Cyber Kindness, diversity matters because security is stronger when more people can contribute, be heard and belong.
Duty of Care
Duty of care means taking reasonable steps to protect the wellbeing, dignity and safety of people involved in a community, event, workplace or campaign.
For Cyber Kindness, this includes recognising that topics such as bullying, harassment, exclusion and trauma can be difficult. People should be able to step back, access support and know where to go if they need help.
Emotional Resilience
Emotional resilience is the ability to cope with pressure, challenge, criticism or difficult situations without being overwhelmed or becoming harmful to others.
It does not mean people should simply toughen up or tolerate poor behaviour. A kind and professional culture should reduce unnecessary harm, not expect people to absorb it silently.
Empathy
Empathy means trying to understand how another person may feel, even if their experience is different from your own.
In Cyber Kindness, empathy helps people communicate more thoughtfully, challenge more constructively and remember that there is a human being behind every job title, post, comment or mistake.
Gatekeeper
A gatekeeper is someone who controls, restricts or blocks access to opportunities, information, networks or progression.
Not all standards are gatekeeping. It is reasonable to expect competence, ethical behaviour, experience and professional development in cyber security. Harmful gatekeeping happens when people exclude others unfairly, move the goalposts, withhold knowledge, mock beginners, protect cliques or use their position to decide who is allowed in.
Calling someone a gatekeeper should not be used as a way to shut down honest advice, legitimate standards or constructive feedback.
Gatekeeping
Gatekeeping means using access, status or knowledge to keep people out, to put them down or to guard the door for its own sake. It is not the same as holding real standards or giving honest guidance.
Cyber Kindness stands behind honest challenge and genuine standards. Calling someone a gatekeeper is not a licence to attack them.
What we mean by gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is using access, status or knowledge to keep people out, to make them feel small or to guard the door for its own sake. Examples include dismissing someone’s question as beneath a reply, sneering at people who are still learning, or treating a job title or a certificate as the only proof that someone belongs.
What gatekeeping is not. Holding a standard is not gatekeeping. Saying that a role needs certain skills, asking for the evidence behind a claim or giving someone honest feedback that their idea needs more work are all part of a healthy profession. Done with respect, they help people get better rather than keep them out.
A word about the word. Gatekeeper has become an easy label to throw at anyone who sets a standard or offers honest advice. Cyber Kindness does not accept that. Challenge is welcome. Standards are welcome. Using the word gatekeeper to shut either of them down, or to attack the person, is not.
Harassment
Harassment is unwanted behaviour that violates someone’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
It may be linked to someone’s identity, background, gender, sexuality, disability, neurodivergence, race, religion, age or other personal characteristics, but it can also occur in other forms.
Inclusion
Inclusion means creating environments where people are not just present, but genuinely welcomed, respected, heard and able to participate.
Inclusion includes accessible events, diverse speaker line ups, plain language, respectful behaviour and making space for people who may not always feel safe or represented.
Intent Versus Impact
Intent is what someone meant to do or say. Impact is how it was received or experienced by someone else.
Good intent does not automatically remove harm. Cyber Kindness encourages people to consider both what they meant and how their words or actions may affect others, especially in neurodivergent, cross-cultural or online communication where meaning can be interpreted differently.
What we mean matters less than how it lands. We take responsibility for the effect of our words, not only for what we intended by them. People read, hear and interpret the same message in different ways, including neurodivergent colleagues and those working across languages and cultures. Owning the impact, and being willing to put it right, is part of what kindness looks like in practice.
Kindness
Kindness is a baseline behaviour that should be available to everyone. It means treating people with acceptance, respect, dignity, care and humanity.
Kindness is not weakness, avoidance or silence. It can include setting boundaries, challenging harm, asking difficult questions and holding people accountable in a fair and respectful way.
Kindness as a Security Control
Kindness as a security control means recognising that respectful, psychologically safer cultures help security work better.
When people are afraid of being blamed, mocked or punished, they may hide mistakes, avoid asking questions or delay reporting concerns. When people feel safe, respected and supported, they are more likely to speak up early, share information and help reduce risk.
Legitimate Standards
Legitimate standards are fair, relevant expectations that help protect people, organisations and the profession.
In cyber security, legitimate standards may include competence, ethics, confidentiality, accountability, technical understanding and responsible conduct. These standards should be applied fairly and should not be used as an excuse to exclude, belittle or intimidate others.
Online Conduct
Online conduct is how people behave in digital spaces such as LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, forums, Slack communities, Discord servers, webinars and comment sections.
Cyber Kindness asks people to remember that online behaviour is still professional behaviour. Challenge ideas, but do not dehumanise people.
Pile On
A pile on happens when many people join in to criticise, attack, mock or shame an individual, often in a public online space.
Even if one comment seems minor on its own, the combined effect can be overwhelming and harmful. Cyber Kindness encourages people to pause before adding to a public criticism thread and consider whether their contribution is helpful, necessary and proportionate.
Plain Language
Plain language means communicating clearly, simply and accessibly so that people can understand and take part.
In cyber security, unexplained acronyms, jargon and technical shorthand can exclude people. Using plain language is a practical act of kindness because it helps more people feel included, informed and able to contribute.
Professional Standards
Professional standards are the behaviours, skills and ethical expectations that help maintain trust in a profession.
Cyber Kindness supports professional standards. It does not argue for lowering the bar. It argues that standards should be upheld without bullying, humiliation, exclusion or cruelty.
Psychological Safety
Psychological safety is the feeling that people can ask questions, raise concerns, admit mistakes and challenge ideas without fear of humiliation, punishment or personal attack.
In cyber security, psychological safety matters because people need to feel able to report risks, incidents and mistakes quickly.
Representation
Representation means ensuring that different people, experiences and perspectives are visible and included.
In Cyber Kindness, representation matters at events, on panels, in campaigns, in imagery and in leadership. A sector that only shows one kind of person risks telling others that they do not belong.
Respect
Respect is treating people with dignity, fairness and professionalism.
Respect does not mean agreeing with everything someone says. It means disagreeing without cruelty, holding boundaries without humiliation and recognising the worth of the person even when challenging their view.
Retaliation
Retaliation is taking harmful action against someone because they raised a concern, reported poor behaviour, challenged something or supported someone else.
Cyber Kindness does not support retaliation. Harm should be addressed through appropriate, fair and accountable routes.
Revenge
Revenge is an attempt to punish, humiliate or harm someone in return for something they have done.
Cyber Kindness does not support revenge or vigilante action. The response to harm should be to challenge it, report it, support those affected and use proper channels wherever possible.
Safe Participation
Safe participation means giving people ways to support or engage with Cyber Kindness without putting themselves at unnecessary personal, professional or contractual risk.
This may include anonymous pledges, private support, confidential conversations or low visibility ways to contribute.
Signposting
Signposting means helping someone find the right person, organisation, resource or support.
In Cyber Kindness, signposting is a simple and practical act of kindness. It can be as straightforward as saying: “I do not know the answer to this, but I know someone who may be able to help.”
Universal Safety
Universal safety means that kindness, dignity and protection from harm are for everyone.
Bullying, harassment, exclusion and poor treatment are not gender specific. Cyber Kindness applies to people of all genders, backgrounds, identities and levels of experience.
Vigilante Action
Vigilante action means taking justice into your own hands outside proper, fair or accountable processes.
Cyber Kindness does not support organised targeting, revenge campaigns, harassment or retaliation. Harmful behaviour should be challenged and reported through appropriate channels, with support offered to those affected.
Weaponising Language
Weaponising language means using words that are meant to support fairness, kindness or safety as a way to attack, silence or control others.
For example, calling someone a gatekeeper should not be used to shut down fair advice, professional standards or legitimate challenge. Cyber Kindness asks people to use language carefully, honestly and responsibly.
Wellbeing
Wellbeing means the mental, emotional and physical state of a person. In cyber security, wellbeing can be affected by pressure, burnout, toxic behaviour, live incidents, public criticism and workplace culture.
Cyber Kindness recognises wellbeing as part of security culture, not separate from it.
