This article explores how the word cyber evolved from its academic roots in cybernetics to its current role as shorthand for cybersecurity. It traces the rise of cyberpunk fiction, the growing association with digital threats in the 1990s, and how UK policy frameworks adopted and institutionalised the term, culminating in the creation of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). From Greek etymology to modern geopolitics, cyber has shifted from describing control to denoting risk.