Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Insider threats to security

I find this article, titled, “Are your biggest security threats on the inside? ", by David Weldon particularly interesting.  The article deals with The so-called "infamous Madison website". The website notorious for infidelity was hacked in 2015.  As stated in the article

The now infamous Ashley Madison website has had a pretty successful run at helping its clientele be disloyal. So perhaps some would view it as poetic justice if the website became one of the most scandalous breaches in history at the hands of one of its own

After thorough "IT security analyst John McAfee, who noted recently, "yes, it is true." The website was not hacked by an outsider but rather by an insider.  The article stated that there is a strong indication that the website data were stolen. There has always been strong believe by organizations that most threats to security are external, though empirical evidence has always supported the fact that most attacks to security are from sources outside the firm's immediate environment. In most cases, external attacks are motivated by the desire to profit from either by selling the information in the black market or by blackmailing the firm.

The article focuses on new trends of threats either by disgruntled, unsatisfied or disengaged employees in stealing sensitive data from their employers. Furthermore, the article also gave another instant "where four former Gillette Company employees", where accused of disclosing confidential information and trade secrets to direct competitor. The trend shows that more and more firms are subjective to an insider attack.


In many cases, when we talk insider threat, the person may no longer be with the company – so if you add that piece to the definition you can see why it becomes pretty big; much bigger than people probably think about

More attention is being paid to activities within the organization; from negligence employees to suspicious activities y employees. In retrospect, to mitigate against security breach from employees, the articles noted that changes in employee behavior could be a good pointer in spotting a potential rogue employee.


References
Weldon, D., (2015). Are your biggest security threats on the inside? Retrieved from:

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Insider threats to security

I find this article, titled, “Are your biggest security threats on the inside? ", by David Weldon particularly interesting.   The ar...