The latest News and Information on Insider Threats including employee monitoring and data privacy.
Financial gain is one of the most common motivations behind cyber-attacks, making the financial sector an attractive target for cyber criminals. Recently, it was reported that companies in finance lost nearly $20 billion due to cyber-attacks and breaches. Furthermore, it was reported that financial companies get attacked 2500x more than a typical business for a total of over one billion attack attempts in a single year. These attacks don’t just target financial institutions.
Investigating a once trusted employee for potential misuse, theft, or other offenses regarding company resources can be a complicated process. While we all hope to hire ethically sound employees, various factors can contribute to ending up with a bad apple in the bunch. Labeled, insider threats, these employees pose a grave risk to organizations due to the insider knowledge and often authorized access they have to critical resources.
The concept of emotional intelligence was first introduced by psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman in 1995. Dr. Goleman found that while intelligence (IQ) is an important factor in leadership, a high level of emotional intelligence (EI) marks those who emerge as highly effective leaders. Emotional intelligence involves soft skills such as discipline, motivation and empathy.
Every visionary business wants to onboard the best of the best when it comes to talent. When hiring, companies look for hardworking, trustworthy individuals that they can rely on to propel the business forward. Similarly, people don’t typically hire people thinking they might start stealing money or misusing information and resources. Unfortunately, this happens quite regularly.
Insider Threats come in many different shapes and forms and can be a frustrating problem to diagnose. Adding to the problem is the fact that even the most reliable and seemingly harmless employees can change in an instant and pose a threat. Protecting your company against these sometimes-unpredictable actors requires an understanding of the various profiles that exist and their motivations.
At RSA 2019, we conducted a survey that netted 733 respondents along with interviews between Javvad Malik, former security advocate at AT&T Cybersecurity, and security experts. The full results are in his comprehensive and informative research report. Following are a few highlights.