What Is Insider Attack?

If you've ever been to a restaurant, the people inside are usually pretty nice. They can also be pretty dangerous. That's because insider attacks are actual—and they're happening everywhere. If you want to protect your business from these attacks, you've got to know how they work and how to prevent them. An insider attack is a spiteful attack perpetrated on a network or computer system by a person with authorized system access. Insiders are capable of causing damage to the plans they have access to, unauthorized disclosure of information, and theft of sensitive data. These people can be external or internal to an organization and have been known to target companies for personal gain, revenge, or ideological reasons. Insider Attacks are becoming increasingly common due to the increase in cybercrime and the ease of use of hacking tools available on the internet. Organizations must implement measures to protect themselves against these threats. Insiders know the network like the back of their hands. They've been there, done that, and learned all the shortcuts. They're like a ninja on steroids—except instead of using martial arts or speed to defeat their enemies, they use passwords and knowledge of the system architecture to defeat their enemies. As of their familiarity with the system and its policies/procedures (and because many organizations focus on protection from external attacks), insiders have an advantage over external attackers. Insider attacks are like viruses—they can affect all computer security elements, ranging from stealing sensitive data to injecting Trojan viruses into a system or network. Insiders also may affect system availability by overloading computer/network storage or processing capacity, leading to system crashes. Insider attacks are not just something that happens to other people. They can happen to you and me, too!