Inside the Insider Threat

Watch for my article on the insider threat in the March 2020 Security magazine. Here’s a teaser:

The insider threat costs organizations billions of dollars every year. It is arguably the biggest threat to the U.S. (and global) economy, global security, and critical infrastructure. But the “insider threat” is a misnomer: it is actually a thousand separate issues, crimes, situations, industries, personalities, tactics, professions, targets, motivations, and consequences. The authors of this article, who have compiled a database of more than 3 million distinct crimes and security incidents, have scrutinized insider threat cases to dispel misconceptions and to aid law enforcement and security professionals to identify trends, tactics, and targets. They have identified and recorded more than 400 jobs from which insiders have done their dirty work, from IT managers to interns and volunteers.