IT Passport Examination — knowledge map
The 66 core concepts of IT Passport Examination and how they connect. Click a node in the map above to explore related terms and prerequisites; the list below indexes every concept with its definition and links to its prerequisites and related concepts.
Concepts (66)
CIA triad
The three pillars of information security: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability.
Related: The CIA triad (confidentiality, integrity, availability)、Information security
Availability rate
The proportion of time a system operates correctly. Availability = MTBF ÷ (MTBF + MTTR); it rises as time-between-failures grows and repair time shrinks. A core availability metric, also used as an agreed SLA target (e.g., 99.9%).
Prerequisites: CIA triad、MTBF (mean time between failures)
Storage devices (HDD and SSD)
Devices that store programs and data over the long term (auxiliary storage). An HDD reads and writes by spinning magnetic disks and is characterized by large capacity and low cost. An SSD uses flash memory and, having no moving parts, is fast, quiet, and shock-resistant, but tends to cost more than an HDD of the same capacity.
ACID
Properties of reliable transactions: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability.
Cloud (cloud computing)
A model in which IT resources such as servers and software are not owned by the user but rented and used over the internet as needed. Users avoid buying and maintaining equipment and often pay only for what they use. Many familiar services, such as email and online storage, are provided via the cloud.
Prerequisites: Storage devices (HDD and SSD)
Data structure
The way data is held and arranged so a computer can handle it efficiently. Examples include arrays (a lineup of the same type), lists (elements linked together), stacks (last-in-first-out), queues (first-in-first-out), and trees (hierarchical); the appropriate one is chosen for the purpose.
Directories and file management
The OS mechanism for organizing and storing files. A directory (folder) is a container that groups files, and files are managed in a hierarchy where directories can contain further directories. File management specifies the location of a target file using paths (absolute and relative) that trace this hierarchy.
Binary search
A search method for a sorted list of data that compares the target value with the value at the midpoint of the search range and repeatedly narrows the range by half. It requires the data to already be sorted, and it finds the target faster than a linear search.
The CIA triad (confidentiality, integrity, availability)
The three fundamental elements of information security management. Confidentiality means only authorized people can access information; integrity means information is accurate and has not been tampered with; availability means information can be accessed whenever it is needed.
Prerequisites: Information security
Related: CIA triad
Copyright
A right that arises automatically the moment a work such as a novel, music, or a program is created; unlike a patent right, no registration procedure is required. Copyright in a program generally belongs to the person who created it, except in the case of a work made for hire.
Information security
The overall effort to protect information from threats such as leakage, tampering, and loss, keeping it safe to use. Its basis is protecting the three elements (CIA) — confidentiality (only authorized people can use it), integrity (contents stay correct), and availability (usable when needed) — covering not only technical measures like firewalls but also operational ones such as password management and user training.
Related: CIA triad
Internal control
The mechanisms and structures a company builds into its own business processes so that operations are carried out appropriately and efficiently. It aims to prevent fraud and ensure reliable financial reporting, and responsibility for establishing and operating it rests with management.
Non-functional requirements
Requirements concerning the quality aspects of a system — such as performance, availability, security, and maintainability — rather than the functions themselves. They must be clarified alongside functional requirements during requirements definition.
Prerequisites: CIA triad、Requirements definition
Related: Functional requirements
Queue (FIFO)
A data structure in which the first item stored is the first one retrieved (FIFO: First In First Out). Items enter at one end (the rear) and leave from the other end (the front). It is often likened to a line of people waiting at a counter.
Prerequisites: Data structure
Requirements definition
An upstream software development process step that clarifies the functions and performance the users or client require and fixes the scope of what will be built. Misunderstandings here directly translate into costly rework in later stages.
MTBF (mean time between failures)
For a repairable system, the average operating time from one failure to the next. A larger value means fewer failures and higher reliability. Computed as total operating time ÷ number of failures.
Isolation
One of the ACID properties, ensuring that concurrently executed transactions produce results as if each ran independently without interference from others. The isolation level setting controls how much anomalous behavior, such as dirty reads, is permitted.
Prerequisites: ACID
Facility management (UPS, seismic isolation and resistance)
The activity of optimally maintaining and managing the physical facilities of a data center or similar site — building, power, and air conditioning. A UPS (uninterruptible power supply) supplies power for a limited time during an outage, bridging until a backup generator takes over or a safe shutdown completes. Seismic isolation absorbs shaking between the building and the ground so tremors are less transmitted to the building, whereas seismic resistance makes the building itself strong enough to withstand shaking; the two differ in how the shaking is transmitted.
Prerequisites: Backup
Backup
Saving copies of data to a separate location or medium in preparation for data corruption or loss or for equipment failure. Even if trouble occurs, the system can be recovered (restored) from the saved copies. It is considered important to take backups regularly and keep them in a location separate from the originals.
Digital signature
A technology that uses public-key cryptography to prove both that an electronic document was created by the claimed author (authenticity) and that the document has not been tampered with (integrity).
Prerequisites: CIA triad
Flowchart
A diagram that lays out the steps and flow of a process in order using standardized symbols (terminals, processes, decisions, and connecting lines). It visually organizes the flow of a program or business task and clearly shows structures such as branches and loops.
Functional requirements
Requirements that define what a system must do — the concrete features users will use, such as 'search for products' or 'register an order.' They are the counterpart to non-functional requirements, which cover quality aspects like performance and security.
Related: Non-functional requirements
Industrial property rights
A collective term for four rights: patent, utility model, design, and trademark rights. Unlike copyright, obtaining these rights requires application to and registration with the patent office.
Prerequisites: Copyright
Phishing
A fraud technique that lures victims to fake emails or websites impersonating real companies or financial institutions, in order to steal IDs, passwords, or credit card information. Carefully checking the URL and domain is a basic countermeasure.
RASIS
An acronym for five metrics used to measure the dependability of a system: Reliability, Availability, Serviceability, Integrity, and Security.
Prerequisites: CIA triad
Review
An activity in which stakeholders read through deliverables (design documents, programs, etc.) to find errors and problems early. Because defects can be caught in upstream phases before running tests, it reduces costly rework later.
Search algorithm
A procedure for finding a target value among many pieces of data. Representative examples are linear (sequential) search, which checks items one by one from the beginning, and binary search, which narrows sorted data by half each step; binary search finds the target faster.
Prerequisites: Binary search
SLA and SLM
An SLA (service level agreement) is a document agreed between a service provider and its users specifying quality targets such as uptime and response time. SLM (service level management) is the ongoing activity of monitoring and reviewing that agreement.
Prerequisites: Availability rate
Sorting algorithm
A procedure for rearranging data into a defined order, such as ascending or descending by size. Examples include bubble sort, which repeatedly compares and swaps adjacent items; sorting data in advance enables efficient processing such as binary search.
Prerequisites: Binary search
Stack (LIFO)
A data structure in which the last item stored is the first one retrieved (LIFO: Last In First Out). Items are added and removed only from one end (the top). It is often likened to a browser's "back" history.
Prerequisites: Data structure
System audit
An activity in which an independent auditor verifies and evaluates, from a third-party standpoint, whether an information system is operated safely and efficiently, and advises on improvements. Independence from the audited department is a precondition for the audit's credibility.
System redundancy (dual and duplex)
Configurations that duplicate a system to guard against failure and raise availability. A dual system runs the same processing on two lines simultaneously and cross-checks the results, giving high reliability. A duplex system separates an active (primary) line used normally from a standby (secondary) line switched to on failure; standby readiness ranges over hot, cold, and other modes.
Prerequisites: CIA triad
Tree structure
A data structure that represents data as a parent-child hierarchy. It branches downward from a top element (the root) to lower elements (nodes and leaves), making it well suited to representing hierarchical data such as folder structures or organization charts.
Prerequisites: Data structure、Directories and file management
Virtualization
Technology that uses software to create multiple virtual computers (virtual machines) on a single physical computer (server virtualization); storage, network, and desktop resources can likewise be virtualized. It allows hardware resources to be used efficiently and enables consolidation and flexible reconfiguration.
Prerequisites: Storage devices (HDD and SSD)
Consistency
One of the ACID properties, guaranteeing that a database always satisfies its defined constraints, such as uniqueness or referential integrity, both before and after a transaction. It prevents transitions to contradictory data states and maintains the correctness of business data.
Prerequisites: ACID
Sampling and encoding
Digitizing an analog signal (A/D conversion) has three stages: sampling → quantization → encoding. Sampling extracts values at fixed intervals (the sampling period); by the sampling theorem the sampling frequency must be at least twice the signal's highest frequency to avoid aliasing. Quantization rounds each sampled value to a discrete level. Encoding then maps each quantized value to a binary bit pattern.
Prerequisites: Binary number
Intellectual property rights
A collective term for rights that protect creative outcomes such as inventions, works of authorship, designs, and trademarks. It is broadly divided into copyright and industrial property rights (patent, utility model, design, and trademark rights).
Prerequisites: Copyright、Industrial property rights
ISMS (Information Security Management System)
A systematic management framework an organization operates to appropriately protect its information assets, spanning policy formulation, risk assessment, implementing countermeasures, and review (PDCA). A certification scheme based on the international standard ISO/IEC 27001 exists.
Prerequisites: Information security、Review
IT control
The mechanisms that support internal control from the information-systems side, using IT to manage and control operations so they are performed correctly and safely. It consists of system-wide controls such as access-rights management and change management, and controls that safeguard the accuracy of individual business processing, such as input checks and reconciliation.
Prerequisites: Internal control
Lossless and lossy compression
Lossless compression can fully restore the original data. Lossy compression achieves a higher compression ratio by discarding information that is hard for humans to perceive, but the original data cannot be perfectly restored — image or audio quality degrades slightly.
Main memory and cache memory
Main memory is the storage area for programs and data that the CPU reads and writes directly. Cache memory is faster but smaller-capacity memory that bridges the speed gap between the CPU and main memory, speeding up processing.
Prerequisites: Storage devices (HDD and SSD)
Relative and absolute references (spreadsheet)
Ways of specifying the cell a spreadsheet formula refers to. With a relative reference, the referenced cell shifts according to position when the formula is copied — handy when each row should compute a different cell. An absolute reference fixes the target using "$", for keeping every row pointed at the same cell, such as a tax rate. A mixed reference fixes only the row or only the column with "$" (e.g., $A1, A$1).
Prerequisites: Spreadsheet software and functions
ROM
A read-only (Read Only Memory) storage device — non-volatile memory whose contents are not lost when the power is turned off. It is used to store data that does not need to be rewritten, such as a computer's startup program. It contrasts with main memory (RAM), whose contents are lost when the power is turned off.
Prerequisites: Storage devices (HDD and SSD)
Cloud service models (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)
Three models classified by how much a cloud provider delivers as a managed service: SaaS provides the application itself, PaaS provides the platform to run applications on, and IaaS provides infrastructure such as servers and networking.
Prerequisites: Cloud (cloud computing)
MTTR (mean time to repair)
The average time from a failure until recovery. A smaller value means faster recovery and better maintainability. Computed as total repair time ÷ number of failures; it is part of the denominator in availability = MTBF ÷ (MTBF + MTTR), assessed together with MTBF (mean time between failures) for reliability and maintainability.
Prerequisites: Availability rate、MTBF (mean time between failures)
SLA (service level agreement)
A contract defining guaranteed uptime; if missed, you may be eligible for service credits (partial refunds).
Prerequisites: Availability rate
File paths (absolute and relative)
An absolute path is a notation giving the full route from the root (top level) to the target file. A relative path is a notation for the route starting from the current working location. The relative-path notation for the same file changes if the starting point changes.
Prerequisites: Directories and file management
Arrow diagram
A diagram (PERT chart) that represents the sequencing of tasks and their durations using arrows and nodes. Summing the durations along each path allows the critical path and the earliest/latest start and finish dates to be calculated.
Prerequisites: Critical path
System audit process (plan, conduct, report, follow-up)
A system audit proceeds in the order plan → conduct → report → follow-up. Planning sets the objectives and scope; conducting the audit gathers evidence and evaluates it; the report communicates problems and improvement recommendations. Follow-up later confirms whether the recommended improvements were actually carried out.
Prerequisites: System audit
Binary number
A way of representing numbers using only the two digits 0 and 1. Because a computer's internals correspond to the on/off states of electrical signals, binary is the basic representation used internally; converting between binary and decimal is a fundamental skill tested.
Business process modeling
The work of representing the flow of everyday business operations visually with diagrams. Beyond flowcharts, notations such as BPMN (a standard process notation) and DFD (data flow diagram) are used. Sharing who does what and in what order aligns stakeholders, makes waste and problems easier to spot, and serves as a prerequisite for process improvement or systemization.
Prerequisites: Flowchart
Color universal design (CUD)
A design approach that takes into account the diversity of color perception (differences in color vision) so that as many people as possible can read information correctly. The key point is not to distinguish information by color alone, but to combine shape, position, text, or patterns so it can still be told apart.
Prerequisites: Universal design
Critical path
Among all the paths from a project's start to its finish, the one with the longest duration. If any task on this path slips by even one day, the overall project completion date slips as well.
Generative AI
AI capable of generating new content such as text, images, audio, or program code. While useful for improving operational efficiency, care is needed regarding risks such as hallucination — plausibly generating incorrect information — and copyright infringement.
Prerequisites: Copyright
Inventory valuation
Calculating the monetary value of remaining inventory (stock) at closing. Because purchase prices vary, methods such as FIFO (first-in first-out) and moving average differ in which unit cost they apply, and the choice affects reported profit.
Prerequisites: Queue (FIFO)
JPEG and MPEG
JPEG is a representative image format that lossily compresses still images such as photographs. MPEG is a representative family of standards for compressing video (image plus audio), reducing data volume by exploiting differences between frames.
Prerequisites: Lossless and lossy compression
MOT (Management of Technology)
A management approach used by technology-based businesses to continuously translate the outcomes of technological development into business results and increased corporate value.
Role of the OS (operating system)
Basic software positioned between hardware and application software, responsible for memory management, task management, file management, and input/output control. Applications access hardware through the functions the OS provides.
Prerequisites: Directories and file management
Segregation of duties
A basic internal-control principle that prevents fraud and error by dividing a sequence of duties — such as approval, execution, recording, and custody — among multiple people rather than concentrating them in one person.
Prerequisites: Internal control
Spreadsheet software and functions
Spreadsheet software is an everyday-use application for entering numbers and formulas into cells to tally, analyze, and create charts. A function is a ready-made calculation template; using functions such as SUM (total), AVERAGE, and IF (conditional branching) lets you express even complex calculations simply.
Technology roadmap
A time-based visualization of future technology trends and a company's own technology-development plans. It is used in MOT (management of technology) to align R&D investment decisions with business strategy.
Prerequisites: MOT (Management of Technology)
Transactions and ACID properties
A transaction is a unit that treats a series of operations as a single whole; if it fails partway through, the entire transaction is undone (rolled back). The ACID properties — atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability — are the four qualities a transaction must satisfy.
Prerequisites: ACID
Universal design
A design philosophy that aims to make products and environments usable by as many people as possible, regardless of differences in age, disability, language, or culture — a broader scope than barrier-free design, which addresses specific groups of users.
Waterfall model
A development approach that proceeds through phases — requirements definition, design, implementation, testing — in sequence, on the premise that, in principle, work does not return to a previous phase. It is easy to plan but not well suited to mid-project requirement changes.
Prerequisites: Requirements definition
Zero trust (concept)
A security philosophy that does not assume access is safe simply because it originates inside the corporate network, and instead verifies every access attempt. It is considered well suited to environments with more external access and cloud use.
Prerequisites: Cloud (cloud computing)