Chapter 7 - WarmTouch: Assessing the Insider Threat and Relationship Management

Abstract

This chapter describes a behavioral science tool that is used to assess the verbal communications that often accompany these activities, including insider acts, anonymous threats, hacker extortion, cyber stalking, and other forms of cyber attacks. The shift of business and personal communications to computer-mediated channels (CMC) has left a void in the ability to detect traditional signals of motivation, personality, emotion, and attitudes as well as indicators of trust. WarmTouch represents an effort to restore this personal dimension to CMC. The initial applications have been to the security world, specially the challenges of detecting signs of risk of violations of trust from online communication. The focus on cyber adversaries has emphasized insiders, authors of anonymous threats, cyber stackers, traditional hacker extortion, and efforts to discredit or damage company reputations online. The chapter explores the ways in which WarmTouch technology can help restore the psychological insights lost in this “colder” medium to assist users in more general and benign forms of personal and professional relationships.