An exploration regarding issues in insider threat

Insider threat occurs when a person with legitimate access misuses his privilegesand compromises the operations and security of a company. When an outsidertries to gain access to company data, it can often be managed or detected by havingstandard controls in place. However, when an insider who has rightful accessto the data is involved, it can often go undetected. There has been a steady rise inthe number of cases of insiders' threat related incidents in recent years. An insidercould do this either for his own benefit or might be acting as an espionage to profitanother individual or organization. Insider threat is prevalent in various formsacross various disciplines and is a serious cause of concern for the operation of anorganization and maintenance of trust of the customers. In this chapter, we will lookat various forms of insider threats, some well-known insider threat cases, factorscausing this kind of behavior, some of the key indicators and what organizationscan do to deter the theft of intellectual property.