Several years ago, some employees obtained shipping schedules kept on password-protected systems and revealed the schedules to outsiders. Knowing when materials were being shipped, the outsiders were able to hijack the trucks and steal the goods. While the number of reported incidents has increased, the increases are tied to a greater number of Internet nodes, increased monitoring, and increased awareness. Security experts say internal threats are far more common than outsiders hacking away at companies' systems to bring down the corporate network or steal valuable corporate data. But I've had lots of opportunities where people have pounded on the door and tried to get in.
Internal attacks are a different story.
At Columbia Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, a recently fired employee compromised security. Tenn. Fortunately, Smith's staff had already begun an organizationwide project of backing up all files. That's got some security advisers exasperated. Mass. In fact, it was constant monitoring and trend analysis that caught the thieves at the shipping company where Patterson worked. Just before the hijacking incident, it was accessed some 50 to 100 times a day.