The Insidious Insider
An employee is already inside the perimeter, past the majority of protective technologies, like firewalls. That employee also knows what information is most vital to the company, has knowledge of passwords, and probably knows which kinds of computers and operating systems the company runs.
If that employee works in IT, he has access to the inner workings of the infrastructure, and he possibly even has root-level access, which would give him wide-ranging control over the system. Companies must be mindful of employees who have that much power over the well-being of the network, says Assistant U.S. Attorney V. Grady O'Malley, a prosecutor on the Duronio case.
"You have to be incredibly vigilant when you're talking about trusting a system to people," O'Malley says. "Who is the person working on our network? Has he exhibited problems we should be worried about? Is he in a position to do damage if he wants to do damage?"
O'Malley also says it's not fair to focus on security problems that UBS might have had at the time of the attack. "Whether their system was flawed or not, they still had the Duronio factor," he says. "Regardless of the security measures you have in place, if the guy you're tasking to make sure the system is protected wants to hit you, then it doesn't make any difference what you've done."
IT professionals need high-level system access to do their jobs. That means technologies and processes need to be put in place to prevent them from ever doing damage, says Ken van Wyk, principal consultant with KRvW Associates. Even with those, a company won't be fully protected from an insider attack, but it won't have any soft underbellies.
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
There are many network courses that can address your present job's priorities and help you gain the needed skills to keep pace with industry changes and new technologies.
