Reflections on the Insider Threat

Abstract

This paper reports on a workshop in June 2007 on the topic of the insider threat. Attendees represented academia and research institutions, consulting firms, industry—especially the financial services sector, and government. Most participants were from the United States. Conventional wisdom asserts that insiders account for roughly a third of the computer security loss. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to validate or refute that assertion, because data on the insider threat problem is meager at best. Part of the reason so little data exists on the insider threat problem is that the concepts of insider and insider threat are not consistently defined. Consequently, it is hard to compare even the few pieces of insider threat data that do exist. Monitoring is a means of addressing the insider threat, although it is more successful to verify a case of suspected insider attack than it is to identify insider attacks. Monitoring has (negative) implications for personal privacy. However, companies generally have wide leeway to monitor the activity of their employees. Psychological profiling of potential insider attackers is appealing but may be hard to accomplish. More productive may be using psychological tools to promote positive behavior on the part of employees.