Insider Threat Analysis

There is no standard ‘profile’ of a person who commits workplace violence, and by no means is someone a threat just because they display one of these traits. Employees that exhibit many of these traits, and with increasing intensity, may be a danger and may need some help. Being able to identify these signs and warning signals, and reporting it to management timely can help prevent a workplace violence incident.

Insiders have immediate access to huge amounts of valuable company information and can misuse their privileges or imitate someone else with higher privileges to plant a virus, copy information, or to infect research data. The main idea for insiders to sell out to a competition are: lack of loyalty, disgruntled, boredom, mischievousness, blackmail, and very important, money.

Workplace violence has existed throughout history. However, historical documentation of workplace violence is vague and sometimes non-existent. Documented workplace violence is believed to have existed during the Roman Empire, the Renaissance Era, and it continues today. It seems unfortunate, but as long as a “society” exists, workplace violence will more than likely exist. Therefore, employers must understand: the history of workplace violence, the effects it has on the organization, the reasons why it occurs, the warning signs, and ways to prevent it from occurring. Most importantly, it is the responsibility of the Manager, to not only understand workplace violence, but to ensure that all employees

A single insider could steal secrets from critical infrastructures or leave them vulnerable to a future hack, which could have residual effects for years, such as the company Target and its reputation after the company was hacked. Further, insiders like Edward Snowden have set back American national security for years to come, by exposing secret security practices to the world. The government proposed in S.3414, to conduct background checks, focus on employee training, and assure that the necessary management are enlisted. These steps might stop the insider threat, but are measures to help reduce the threat. The benefits would also lead to better productivity and ensure the right employees are emplace to meet the industry standards and comply with policy. A new proposed bill should incorporate this feature within the government and be an option within privately owned critical infrastructures with incentives if guidance is

Employees - In the 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index, IBM found that 60% of all attacks were carried out by insiders. Employees can be a threat in various different forms such as getting manipulated by a cyber criminal for favours or any other reason. They can also download malicious content from

When an employee reaches a level of trust with their company and the controls of that company is weak, the employee may assume this is an opportunity to commit the crime and avoid detection.

Since there has been a rise in unfavorable treatment incidents when corporate psychopaths are in the workplace, it has also caused an increase in negative effects for organizations. Such negative effects include an increase in bullying (Boddy, 2014), counterproductive work behavior, harassment, employee absenteeism and healthcare costs for organizations by these individuals that display these toxic behaviors. Consequentially, even though there is an increase in these toxic and counterproductive behaviors in the workplace, there have not been solutions established to determine how to prevent these behaviors. Some suggestions to avoid these behaviors include improving screening and selection procedures before hiring these individuals. Providing coaching or leadership

Insiders represent the greatest threat to any information systems. The majorities of insiders have the proper security clearances, have signed the non-disclosure agreement, are firmly loyal to the United States, and know that they are obligated to protect the nation's secrets and sensitive information. The insiders are granted certain authorities and trust and have the ability to abuse their authorized access to exploit or otherwise misuse information systems. Imagine a federal employee is disdained of security practices that result in compromise or destruction of information. An example would be the recent top secret documents leaks that were stored in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private unsecured server. According to recent news, there were at least 1,340 classified emails ranging from classification level of secret and top secret found in United States Hillary Clinton’s server. Another example would be the case of former CIA Director David Petraeus where he was prosecuted for intentionally sharing intelligence from special access programs with his formal biographer Paula Broadwell. For the federal department, unauthorized disclosure of classified materials could cause

While there is evidence that workplace related homicides are extremely rare, these acts are more devastating than other acts of violence, such as robbery, sexual attacks, and other aggravated assaults. Specifically, they are difficult to prevent and may stem from emotions or behaviors that are external rather than internal causations. For instance, if an employee is in an abusive relationship, the death defining act can happen without co-workers or management prior knowledge of an on-going problem. For this reason, it is imperative that security personnel understand the possibility of these types of threat and establish contingency plans for the company's actions when they occur, and if at all possible, mitigate the probability of these

Insider threats are not a new phenomenon in the history of the world or the United States. Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese General and author of the famous treatise The Art of War, believed that obtaining information through the use of spies made certain “great achievements.” The use of spies continued in from the Roman Empire to the strategic victories in World War II (Zurcher, 2013). In the United States, the mainstream media popularized spying with figures like James Bond, Jack Ryan, and Simon Templar. During the Cold War, 1985 was dubbed the “Year of the Spy” when twelve individuals were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for spying. John Anthony Walker Jr., a Navy Warrant Officer and communications specialist worked for the Soviet Union; Jonathan Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst for the Navy’s Anti-Terrorist Alert Center worked for Israel; Sharon Scranage, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) desk clerk in Ghana and worked for Ghana; Larry Chin, a Chinese language translator/intelligence officer for the CIA worked for China; and Ronald Pelton, a communications specialist for the National Security Agency (NSA) worked for the Soviet Union; are a few examples of the individuals arrested (Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.). Each of these individuals worked within the US Defense and Intelligence communities and exposed national security secrets.

In case of evident occurrence, a proficient and fast examination can lead to moves made with insignificant disturbance to the business.

When it comes to selecting an employee for a job position, personality comes into play on account of the fact that it can affect behavior in the workplace. Whether positive or negative effects, it is important for the possibility of aggressive behavior to be considered as to avoid hiring persons who prove to be dishonorable toward the business through their negative actions. After reading “An Integrative Typology of Personality Assessment for Aggression: Implications for Predicting Counterproductive Workplace Behavior,” the authors heavily emphasize two cognitions: explicit and implicit. Their main concentration for this particular study involves aggression and how to properly test it using self-report as well as a type of “integrative typology.” The implicit cognition is “not accessible to consciousness and therefore measurable only by indirect means,” suggesting that testing for aggressiveness requires “an indirect measurement… integrated with a self-report” (page 723). The study sets out to prove the validity of these methods as a useful tool for businesses to determine the capabilities, whether positive or negative, of their potential or current employees.

As the 20th century saw the nature of warfare move away from line by line battalion formation fighting to trench warfare in the First World War, to the highly aggressive and audacious blitzkrieg methodology implemented by Nazi Germany in the Second World War and the introduction of counterinsurgency operations highlighted by French and then American involvement in Vietnam, so too does the nature of warfare adapt to 21st century technology and the seemingly fragile geopolitical landscape. This new form of fighting rears its ugly head in the form of hybrid warfare. As far as definitions are concerned, the United States Army defines a hybrid threat as a diverse and dynamic combination of regular forces, irregular forces, and/or criminal elements all unified to achieve mutually benefiting effects (Department of the Army, 2010). The recent event I chose that demonstrations a hybrid threat would be the Russian annexation of Crimea and its destabilization of eastern Ukraine.

Therefore, taking firm and decisive actions against abusive behaviors even if the person who committed this act is a top-performer can have a significant impact on improving morale and increasing performance for the members of the organization (Sutton, 2007). Subordinates can play a pivotal role to survive toxic leaders at work when they develop indifference and emotional detachment, look for small wins and small victories, limit their exposure to toxic individuals (Tavanti, 2011). Also, followers can expose them through whistleblower and other

Violence in the workplace has become a major safety and health issue. Workplace violence is not limited to homicide. This type of violence includes behaviors and circumstances that threaten an employee 's physical safety; such as: verbal threats, sexual or physical harassment, coercion, behavior changes, intimidation, stalking, telephone/email harassment, and history of aggression. “Workplace violence incidents have tripled in the last decade, and it is now the fastest-growing category of murder in the United States. It is also the second leading cause of death for women in the workplace (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016).” The United States Department of Justice declared the workplace as one of the most dangerous places to