Insider Threats

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Revision as of 02:42, 25 March 2008

Definition

Overview of Insider Threats

Etc

Sources of Insider Threats

Employees

Employees of an organization are amongst the greatest risk in terms of access to and potential harm with an organization’s sensitive material. Organizations typically assume that they can trust their employees. They believe that their employees are primarily interested in the productivity and successfulness of the organization. Therefore they are not considered to be of any possible danger and are considered last when a leak of sensitive material has occurred.

Contractors

Info

Former Employees

Former employees who pose a threat to their former organization are typically disgruntled employees. They believe that the organization has “done them wrong” and feel that revenge is justified. [Eric D. Shaw]

They are able to gain access to sensitive material either:

• Directly: Through a back door. If an employee fears termination, he or she may prepare a backdoor access or alternative usernames and passwords in order to gain entry. They may also begin collecting proprietary data for later use.
• Indirectly: Through former associates. A former associate may create a back door access for the former employee or may provide him or her with proprietary information.

Prevention & Counter Measures

There are several prevention and counter measures in minimzing the risk of insider threats. A combination of training, account protection, and the knowledge of one knowing that their actions are being logged and audited can hesitate a disgruntled employee from attacking the system or revealing sensitive materials. "Insiders tend to feel more confident and less inhibited when they have little fear of scrutiny by coworkers; therefore, remote-access policies and procedures must be designed and implemented very carefully." [news@sei]

Background Checks

Several organizations do not perform adequate background verification on their new employees. Screening new employees properly, such as reference checks or inspecting criminal records, can reduce the probability of an organization hiring individuals that may be an insider threat. Background checks should be performed for all individuals who are given access to an organization's sensitive materials even if they are not directly employed by the organizations (e.g.: Contractors) [Eric D. Shaw].

Monitoring Employee Behaviour

U.S. Secret Service studies have shown that most insider attacks were done by individuals who had disciplinary problems. [Eric D. Shaw] Procedures can be created and enforced for both the human resources and IT departments to monitor employee behaviours. Some examples include but are not limited to:

• Through the use of access and account policies, an organization can associate online actions with the employee that performed them. Online actions should be logged and periodically monitored for suspicious behaviour. The logs can also be audited by the organization to discover and then further investigated for possible insider attacks. [news@sei]

• Monitoring suspicious or disruptive behaviour by employees within the work place. An organization can institute policies that require their employees to report any suspicious behaviour which should be followed up by the human resource department. [news@sei]

Restrictions on Remote Access

Majority of insider attacks use some form of remote access. [Eric D. Shaw] An organization should restrict remote access to only those individuals with a legitimate, business related need.

Employees accessing the organization from outside should not be granted the same level of privlege as they would have in the work place. The restricted remote access not only protects the organization against insider attacks but also viruses and malware that can spread through the connection.

Enforcing the Principle of Least Privlege

The Principle of Least Privilege refers to the concept that all users in a system are granted the "most restrictive set of privileges (or lowest clearance) needed for the performance of authorized tasks." [MS]. This principle minimizes the potential damage caused by an accident, error, or unauthorized use.

It is also important for an organization to have a procedure within their policy that requires the terminated employee's access accounts be disabled from all of the organization's access points including: physical locations, networks, software, data, and all sensitive materials. [Eric D. Shaw]

Monitoring Electronic Outbound with Software

Peez!

References

• news@sei: "Protecting Against Insider Threat", Dawn Cappelli, Andrew Moore, and Timothy Shimeall, http://www.sei.cmu.edu/news-at-sei/columns/security_matters/2007/02/security-matters-2007-02.htm
• Eric D. Shaw: "The Insider Threat To Information systems", Eric D. Shaw, http://www.ntc.doe.gov/cita/CI_Awareness_Guide/Treason/Infosys.htm
• MS: "Applying the Principle of Least Privlege to User Accounts on Windows XP", Mike Danseglio, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456992.aspx
• Mike Chapple: "Thwarting insider threats", Mike Chapple, http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid14_gci1093643,00.html
• Background checks
• Monitoring employee behaviour
• Restrict accounts
• Restrict the scope of remote access
• Enforce the principle of least privlege

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