10 Ways To Stop Insider Security Threats

Information security too often involves a fortress mentality, with not enough attention paid to the risks of an inside job. Yet nearly half of all data breaches can be linked to insiders, with half of those breaches involving privilege misuse. In the book, Preventing Good People from Doing Bad Things (Apress/Available now), authors John Mutch and Brian Anderson examine the clever ways that crooks gain access to corporate systems and valuable data. Many incidents are perpetrated with the cooperation of a willing inside party who may be seeking personal gain and/or revenge, but the stealthy manipulation of uninformed workers is another popular tool for hackers, who trick unsuspecting professionals into clicking malware-inviting links. The authors advocate a “least privilege” approach to ensure that enterprise users access only the information they need. Mutch and Anderson both work for BeyondTrust, a security company, where Mutch is CEO and Anderson is chief marketing officer. For more about the book, click here.