These days we are reading expressions like “hacker attack”, “hackers” and “cybersecurity”, but they are not always the most appropriate terms. For example, a hacker is not necessarily a cybercriminal, while the word “cybersecurity”, although widespread and also used by Italian institutions, has been criticized by the Accademia della Crusca, which prefers to use the “i”, writing “cybersecurity”. Corrado Giustozzi, cybersecurity professor at the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, who we interviewed on the occasion of the recent attacks on the refrigeration systems of European supermarkets, explains to us why it is important to choose these words carefully.
Because “hacker attack” is not always the most appropriate term
When we hear about a hacker attack, it often comes naturally to us to imagine a hooded person in front of a computer trying to violate a computer system. But the term “hacker” is not synonymous with computer criminal: the word was born in the context of computer culture, in particular in the US university environments of the 1960s, to indicate people with considerable technical skills and capable of finding ingenious solutions to computer problems.
As also reported by L‘Treccani Encyclopediathe term has taken on different meanings over time. Today, for example, we speak of “white hat hackers” to indicate experts who identify IT vulnerabilities by operating with security purposes and in compliance with the rules, and of “black hat hackers” for those who use their skills to carry out illicit activities.
There is also the intermediate category of “grey hats”, which includes behaviors that are not always clearly attributable to the first two categories.
Not all hackers, therefore, are criminals, just as not all cyber attacks are necessarily carried out by particularly skilled individual experts: behind these operations there may also be structured criminal organizations or groups acting for political and strategic purposes.
For this reason, according to Giustozzi, it would be more appropriate to speak of “cyber attack” or “cyber attack”, expressions that describe what happened without automatically attributing a particular identity to those responsible. When the latter are identified, more precise definitions can be used, such as “attackers”, “cyber criminals” or “saboteurs”, as appropriate.
Speaking generically about hackers risks confusing security experts and cyber criminals, while choosing more precise terms helps to better explain the nature and complexity of digital threats.
Cybersecurity or cybersecurity? What the Accademia della Crusca says
Another word that has entered everyday language is cybersecurity, used to indicate the protection of networks, computer systems and data from digital threats. Yet, from a linguistic point of view, this term has a peculiarity: it combines the English prefix cyber- to the Italian word security. It is therefore a hybrid training, which not all linguists consider preferable.
The prefix cyber– comes from English cyberneticscorresponding to the Italian cybernetics, a term which in turn dates back to the Greek kybernetes (“helmsman” or “one who governs”).
In a statement dated November 22, 2018, the Incipit group of the Accademia della Crusca recommended preferring the Italian prefix “ciber-” to “cyber-” when forming new Italian words. According to this indication, therefore, it is preferable to write “cybersecurity”, as well as “cyberdefense”, “cyberspace” or “cyberprotection”.
The issue became relevant again in 2021, when the Italian Government officially introduced the term cybersecurity in the name of the National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN). The Incipit group intervened again, criticizing this choice and reiterating the preference for the Italian form.
This does not mean that cybersecurity is a forbidden word: it is a form that is now widespread and consolidated in institutional use. Crusca’s recommendation rather concerns linguistic coherence and the preference for terms constructed according to Italian conventions.
Alternatively, the expression “cyber security” can also be used, which has long been used in institutional documents, or the more common “computer security”, whose meaning can however be slightly more limited depending on the context.
