Cybersecurity Insider Threats Dangerous and Difficult to Defend Against

Cybersecurity experts are finding it difficult to keep hackers out of their networks, but the risk of insider threats continues to cause headaches.  It’s a troubling epidemic because most system and network security systems are designed to keep outsiders from breaching current infrastructure.

To make matters worse, 75 percent of insider crimes are underreported and don’t typically lead to prosecution – a troubling fact that insider threats normally cost more to combat, according to a US State of Cybercrime study published earlier in the year.

There will be a major effort to try to limit insider threats, with better monitoring services to better track what is being accessed.

Here is what Ron Ross, National Institute of Standards and Technology information risk management leader in “Security Agenda”:

“We talk about the geeks inheriting the world.  You got the system admins sitting on top of a treasure trove of gigabytes of classified information and they really have a lot of power out there.  And, it’s going to be really important that we take extraordinary measures where those assets are very critical to make sure one person can’t bring down the entire organization.”

The risk of insider threats is more prominent for governments, financial institutions, and critical infrastructure, security researchers say.  Stolen information is highly valuable on the black market, with cybercriminals interested in selling and trading data.

Thank you to the Information Security Media Group for providing us with information

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