Insider Attacks : The Threat Of An Insider Attack

Technology has facilitated the use of transiting data. With that in mind, sensitive information must be kept within close safe guards. Failure to protect vital information may facilitate its retrieval by criminals or those with malicious intents to use that data unethically. Individuals with access to material non-public information may sell that information to an outside party for profit. Likewise, these individuals may harvest this data within their perimeters to use as ammunition to defraud or blackmail an organization. Employers need to be wary of the threat of insiders exposing sensitive information to outside parties. “An insider is anyone who has intimate knowledge of internal operations and processes, or trusted access to

The first of these threats is Social Engineering. Social Engineering according to Social-Engineer.org (2013), is “the act of influencing a person to accomplish goals that may or may not be in the ‘target’s’ best interest. This may include obtaining information, gaining access, or getting the target to take certain action.” The employees themselves are the area of the system affected by this threat. Social Engineering exploits their naivety. General lack of experience in recognizing this type of attack is a major reason for its success. Education on what Social Engineering is and how to recognize attacks coupled with company policies written, put into place, and enforced to prevent individuals from divulging or even having access to certain information no matter the scenario is the recommended course of action.

CIO is well aware of the preventive measures taken against the external threats and has switched the focus to the internal threats. Detection and prevention of internal attack is equally important to the external attacks in the network. Most networks are vulnerable to betrayal from within do to the assumption that everyone who is inside the

In today’s modern society, to which a well-developed information technology has been applied, it is getting more and more inevitable to use it in our everyday life, since people can store and access to their private information in one place without difficulty. However, this is also the danger of it, as it has become much easier for a third-party to collect and steal information online. Consequently, many cautious company and institutions are aware and well prepared for the potential cyber data hack attacks. (Bennett, 1992)

Answer 2: Measures companies can take to protect themselves from the action of rogue employees:

There are two types of vulnerabilities we face at our company today, technical and administrative vulnerabilities. Technical vulnerabilities consist of improper configuration of software and hardware, a lack of advanced security software and vulnerable

An insider means, person has a authorized access to use computer and networks, a person has access to go inside of delegate information, a person has a knowledge how to get required information, a person who do work inside the security circumference, and person can add or delete important information from the system. According to research showcase @ CMU, “Current and former employees, contractors, and other organizational "insiders" pose a substantial threat by virtue of their knowledge of and access to their employers' systems and/or databases and their ability to bypass existing physical and electronic security measures through legitimate means.”

In the InfoSec industry, CTOs have witnessed many inside jobs also known as insider threats. These threats usually comprise of individuals or groups of people in organizations or companies. These individuals may include employees, contractors, business associates or partners. They try to deliberately contribute to or begin to breach the network of the company to sabotage or steal information. Because these people are already inside the company, they have the advantage of being familiar with how the network works in the company, having login credentials, having ways to keep their position in the company without getting caught and being able to access information about clients. These insider

The insider threat refers to harmful acts that trusted individuals might carry out; for example, something that causes harm to the organization, or an unauthorized act that benefits the individual. The insider threat is manifested when human behaviors depart from established policies, regardless of whether it results from malice or disregard for security policies. The most serious crimes and abuses include espionage, sabotage, terrorism, embezzlement, extortion, bribery, and corruption.

(B) Outside of normal company standards and verifications we should also do the following to prevent the possibility of an accidental insider threat. These threats may occur not due to a person with malicious intent, but

The severity of how badly the rules are broken can vary, but for the company the outcome does not, if the employee or in other terms, “uninformed troublemakers” are given access to bend rules beyond what the company believes is the standard, I.T employees need to discover this problem and issue a solution as readily as possible (Sullivan 2001). Insider security threats are usually the greatest source of security problems. Outsiders amount to between only 1 to 6 per cent of concerns. Many types of insider security threats do create substantial risks for organizations (Melford 1993). Network management can help manage internal issues but network management cannot act in a smart manner to solve problems without external operations from network staff.

Computer crime is referred to, in many cases, as an insider job, as the majority of such acts are performed by employees, taking into account that the fact that they have access to data makes it easier for them to perform crimes. Many employers express little interest in who in their companies has access to data and to restrictions being placed on computers within the company. Instead, they are inclined to focus on designing systems that would mainly prevent outsiders who want to hack into their databases. It is intriguing to think about how most computer crimes are committed by trusted employees rather than by hackers.

To be more specific, a modern enterprise is surrounded by numerous hazards, which, if properly exploited, may lead to devastating outcomes for a company, especially if the company is involved in the financial segment of the economy. Today’s business practice vividly illustrates that a single leak of information may cause bankruptcy, substantial distrust of customers and even criminal persecution by the government (Chwan, 2013).

Pay attention to all aspects of computer security, insider threats to information occupies a significant place. Although outsiders, for example, hackers, are generally regarded as a big threat to a company, the company staffs are actually putting a greater risk for security of company information. In the perspective of Shaw et al (n.d.), increasing dependence on information technology enhance the reliance on technology workers who are involved with design, maintenance and operation of network

Employee behavior in organizations is the biggest threat to information security (Schneier, 2000)(Martins & Eloff, 2002)(Da Veiga et al, 2007). Currently, research in IS focuses on technical mechanisms of security, and does not think about employee interactions with the system (Parsons et al, 2010). Research has shown that an emerging threat to information security is the insider (Hu et al, 2012)(PWC, 2014). The insider threat is the most difficult information security challenges that organizations face, as well as one of the hardest to protects against (Stanton et al, 2005)(Hu et al, 2012). The severity from malicious insiders could produce negative publicity and even financial losses to an organization.