I don’t speak kyberturvallisuus

Stymied by cyber security (kyberturvallisuus)? Foiled by Finnish (Suomi)? F-Secure’s Global Communications Team is here to help.

October is European Cyber Security Month, and Finland currently holds the Presidency of the EU. A country of some five million people bordered by Sweden, Russia, and Norway, this Nordic nation pulls its weight in the innovation, cyber security, and laid back way of life arenas (no rake required).

Helsinki recently hosted the Cyber Security Nordic event, which forms part of European Cyber Security Month. ECSM is an EU-backed campaign aimed at helping people stay safe and secure online when it comes to protecting their personal, financial, and/or professional data.

Bringing the importance of cyber security to the fore, one of the goals of this annual happening is to promote safer Internet use for all users. It is deployed by the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), and the European Commission DG CONNECT and Partners.

Information security (INFOSEC) is a challenge for all countries, and one of several areas we are concerned about at F-Secure, a Finland-headquartered company of some 30 years’ standing. The working language at F-Secure is English, but non-Finnish speakers can quite often feel rather bewildered on their office corridor travels.

‘Triple Dutch’ Finnish, a member of the Uralic language family which includes Hungarian and Estonian, for example, is one of the hardest language learning challenges for English-speakers. There are words containing double consonants, double vowels, the letters ‘ä’ and ‘ö’. The written and spoken forms of Finnish differ. There is the vocabulary, the suffixes, the phonetics…

Cyber security à la Finnoise in a country where skating in ice hockey boots seems to be part of Finns’ DNA increases the mix’s complexity. All is not lost, however. Here is a list of fifteen of the most common cyber security words we’ve compiled and translated for you – whether you are in or outside the industry – that kill two adversaries with one mitigation, so to (cyber) speak:

1. Denial of service attack (DDoS attack) – Palvelunestohyökkäys
2. Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attack – Kohdistettu hyökkäys
3. Malicious software; malware; malicious program – Haittaohjelma; haittakoodi
4. Ransomware – Kiristyshaittaohjelma; kiristysohjelma; lunnasohjelma
5. White hat hacker – Valkohattuhakkeri
6. Black hat hacker – Mustahattuhakkeri
7. Trojan – Troijalainen
8. Phishing – Salasanojen kalastelu
9. Spam – Roskaposti, Spämmi
10. Troll – Trolli, (henkilö joka provosoi netin keskusteluissa)
11. Privacy – Tietosuoja
12. Endpoint protection – Päätelaitteen suojaus
13. Breach – Tietoturvaloukkaus
14. Router – Reititin
15. Cyber activism – Kyberaktivisti, haktivismi

Do these seem like a mouthful and/or eyeful? Then do try the typically Finnish custom of taking a sauna to relax – the birch twig beating is not compulsory.