Security Experts Raise Alarm Over Insider Threats Economic troubles raising the stakes on potential threats, FIRST members say
By Tim WilsonDarkReading

Security researchers and other experts are turning up the heat on insider threats, warning enterprises that the problem is growing and could prove devastating for many enterprises.

In preparation for its meeting in Japan next month, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) issued a press release in which its senior officers urge organizations to step up their efforts to protect themselves from insider attacks, saying that many are "ill-prepared for an onslaught which could prove calamitous."

"One of the greatest security threats of our times is from insiders, as organizations lay off tens of thousands of workers," said Scott McIntyre, a FIRST steering committee member and representative of the Netherlands-based KPN Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). "People know the axe is coming, and the longer employers prolong the swing of that axe, the more danger they expose themselves to, either from sabotage or data theft. An employee who thinks he or she is [going to be laid off] can start fouling up systems which are critical to the organization, or decide to take an unauthorized pay-off by stealing a mass of data."

read more ......