The speakers stressed that the threat is a complex and growing problem. As the work environment becomes increasingly dependent on information systems, mitigating the insider threat is likely to become an increasingly difficult issue. This section provides an overview of the workshop presentations. Law Enforcement Perspective Rich Ress, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI, presented law enforcement s perspective on the insider threat. Mr. Ress highlighted the growing number of reported insider attacks and the difficult task of identifying and pursuing malicious insiders.
Insiders cause significantly more damage than hackers do.
Many organizations are ill prepared for insider attacks and have focused their security measures on preventing outsiders from getting into their systems. These organizations have not implemented appropriate audit procedures to allow law enforcement to identify the attacker. Furthermore, these organizations are sometimes reluctant to press charges against the perpetrator for fear of legal or public scrutiny. To combat the insider threat, organizations need to develop comprehensive security awareness programs, computer use policies, and audit capabilities. These policies and procedures need to be universally applied across the organization.