Glossary
IT Support Specialist Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential IT support specialist terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key IT support specialist vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in IT support specialist training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Active Directory
- Microsoft’s directory service for managing users and computers.
- Asset management
- Tracking hardware and software inventory.
- DHCP
- Automatically assigns IP addresses to devices.
- DNS
- Translates domain names into IP addresses.
- Imaging
- Deploying a standard operating system and software configuration to computers.
- IP address
- A device’s address on a network.
- Knowledge base
- A collection of documented solutions.
- Least privilege
- Giving users only the access they need.
- MFA
- Multi-factor authentication: requiring more than a password to sign in.
- Phishing
- Fraudulent messages that try to steal credentials or install malware.
- Remote desktop
- Connecting to a user’s computer to help them remotely.
- SLA
- Service level agreement: target response or resolution times.
- Ticket
- A record of a support request in the help desk system.
- Tier 1 / Tier 2
- Support levels; tier 1 handles common issues, tier 2 handles escalations.
- VPN
- Virtual private network: a secure connection to a remote network.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free IT Support Specialist practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see IT Support Specialist training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.