Insider Threats
From Computing and Software Wiki
Definition
Contents |
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. [Eric D. Shaw]
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) [Mike Chapple].
Monitoring Employee Behaviour
U.S. Secret Service studies have shown that most insider attacks were done by individuals who had disciplinary problems. [Mike Chapple] 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. [Mike Chapple] 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. [Mike Chapple]
Monitoring Electronic Outbound with Software
Organizations can utilizie software to monitor electronic outbounds for sensitive materials. Some examples of electronic outbounds include but are not limited to:
- Instant messaging
- Copying to a portable USB drive
By monitoring the outbound channels, software solutions can use various algorithms and pattern matching against a database of stored sensitive material to see if anything is being leaked out. A suspicious match is generally flagged and followed by by the appropriate party [BusinessWeek]. Some software solutions, such as Vontu, are sophisticated to a point that it can even spot material such as source code or financial information [Vontu].
See Also
External Links
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
- BusinessWeek: "The Insider Threat", Steve Hamm, http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2006/01/the_insider_thr.html
- Vontu: "Protect source code, protect intellectual property", http://www.vontu.com/solutions/high-tech.asp
