Insider Attack Essay

Although in today’s media we hear a plethora of reports regarding hackers and attacks on government agencies, multi-million dollar organizations and small business; it’s rarely brought to our attention that many compromises are made possible by insider threats. Without a doubt it is instantly assumed that a majority of insider attacks are intentional; however, it’s the unintentional insider threats that pose a bigger danger to security. Why is the unintentional insider threat a bigger threat? Because more than likely, the user is unaware they are the threat and/or are not well trained and are more likely to repeat their poor security habits. Also research has shown working long hours and multitasking are red flags for risk” ("Survey Finds Employee …show more content…
As with red teaming, these techniques are designed to help debias thinking, enhance decision making, and avoid surprise. According to Fishbein and Treverton, “alternative analysis seeks to help analysts and policy-makers stretch their thinking through structured techniques that challenge underlying assumptions and broaden the range of possible outcomes considered.” They further clarify the term by specifying that “Alternative analysis includes techniques to challenge analytic assumptions (e.g. ‘devil’s advocacy’), and those to expand the range of possible outcomes considered (e.g. ‘what-if analysis,’ and ‘alternative scenarios’).” Despite their many potential advantages, red teaming and alternative analysis are not silver bullets. As one would expect, the quality of the output hinges inter alia on the quality and experience of the team, the team’s approach and toolset, and the overall context of the effort. An overconfident or culturally biased analyst or team will not benefit as much from these approaches as might an analyst or team that employs “actively open-minded thinking,” to use Jonathan Baron’s term. (See, for example, his book Thinking and