Insiders are a greater threat to corporate IT security than
hackers, says RSA.
RSA, the security division of EMC, said
research it
commissioned from IDC showed that accidental security incidents by
company insiders happen more often and have greater potential for
harm than malicious insider attacks.
IDC found that most chief security officers (CSOs) were more
worried about the threats from outsiders and that their budgets
were therefore misaligned.
The IDC said its 400 respondents worldwide admitted to
• 6,244 incidents of unintentional data loss
• 5,830 malware/spyware attacks from inside the enterprise,
and
• 5,794 risky incidents from abuse of privilege and access
control rights.
"In total, the number of internal security incidents from the
respondents came out at 57,485 in the previous 12 months," IDC
said.
Some 93% of respondents were responsible for security decisions
within their organisations, but 82% were unclear on the source of
their company's insider risk and could not accurately pinpoint or
quantify the nature of the financial impact.
In the past year, contractors and temporary employees posed the
greatest source of insider threat, the IDC found. Outsourcing
companies lost nearly $800,000 because of insider breaches.
When asked to rank their top threats, almost 82% of CSOs were
unsure if incidents from contractors and temporary staff were
accidental or deliberate.
Fifty-two per cent said their insider incidents were mostly
accidental. Only 19% believed the attacks were deliberate, 26%
believed they were an equal combination, and 3% were unsure.
The survey showed that almost 40% of respondents will increase
spending to cut internal security risks over the next 12 months,
but 6% will decrease spending.
Chris Christiansen, vice-president for security products at IDC,
said the complexity and distributed nature of many large firms
meant it was hard to assess the risks posed by insiders. "Whether
the risk is intentional or not, it is there. It is real," he
said.