Insider threat
to corporate information security
Unauthorized
access to information resources by trusted insiders poses even greater
threat to corporate security than external attacks, as insiders
typically have legitimate reasons to access sensitive information, such
as corporate data and customer database.
Insider abuse
Unauthorized
access to confidential information is largely considered an external
threat. However, most of serious security breaches such as the loss of
sensitive information, financial fraud and denial-of-service attacks
are often associated with unauthorized use of data by trusted employees
inside the company. “Insider” is an individual who has been
authorized to use specific information resources.
Insiders
often possess information of substantial value as they may obtain
access to their employer’s information systems and find a way around
existing security measures through legitimate means. Insider activity
might involve such incidents as compromising, manipulating, exceeding
authorized access to, tampering with and even disabling company’s
information resources, workstation, or network.
In
many cases, security breaches require little technical sophistication:
trusted insiders often abuse company’s non-technical vulnerabilities,
such as business rules and organization policies, rather than
vulnerabilities in information systems and network. In this connection,
it is essential for corporate management to secure confidential
information resources from unauthorized access by employees at all
levels. However, innovative technology providing for data content
analysis and intelligent monitoring, may also be of great help.
Security
breaches in corporate information security may cause significant damage
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Most
often sensitive information is at risk when it is transferred outside
the corporate network or stored in an unauthorized location. The
confidential data that can be copied into a word processing
application, e-mail or instant message or transferred to another format
is usually the most vulnerable part of corporate information security.
To secure sensitive information, specific access controls should be set
in place.
Typically,
a wide range of individuals and groups has access to the corporate
network: from employees at all levels of authority to suppliers to
customers to vendors. User access policies should consider what people
in which department can be granted access to particular information
resources. For instance, employees in the finance department must be
given access to accounting information, while employees in the
technical department are not supposed to access this type of data.
However, assigning access to specific resources is not
sufficient.
Who
guarantees the trusted employee will abide by the corporate security
policy and use her access privileges as intended? For example, password
and login data can be intercepted as a result of personal negligence or
even malicious activity. Besides, it should be taken into consideration
that access controls are focused on protecting a particular document or
application versus the valuable information it contains. The sensitive
information stored in a protected file can be compromised through
email, instant messaging, or internet bulletin board. Information is
also at risk if it can be easily transferred outside the corporate
network to a portable device, compact disk or some other repository.
Security
breaches associated with insider activity may cause considerable damage
to a corporation, ranging from illegal distribution of the company’s
intellectual property to the loss of customer data and business
disruption. The reputation damage is also a significant risk. That’s
why major companies try to avoid public announcements on insider abuse
as these publications might have a negative effect on brand integrity
or the whole industry reputation.
Corporate
security strategy should prevent insider abuse
To
protect company’s sensitive data, strong information security policy
should be set in place. In terms of a large-scale corporation, it is a
hard challenge to ensure that all employees at all levels comply with
the company’s security standards. User access policy should provide
for rigid adherence to access controls procedures, ensuring that every
piece of confidential data is secured and the amount of data access
privileges is extremely limited.
The
files containing sensitive information should be stored in a specific
location. It should be immediately detected if the data was transferred
across the corporate network or to an external device. To reduce
insider theft risks, it is essential to monitor and audit user activity
across the entire network on a regular basis.
In
other words, internal security is an exceptional challenge for
corporate management and it should be addressed with strategies
appropriate to a particular organization.
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protection of personal files)
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