New Study Examines Employee Sabatoge

[Tami]

Insider Hating: New Study Examines Employee Sabatoge


Jason L. Miller

Driven by the rage that comes with being busted down a few ranks, and then fired for abusive treatment of coworkers, a system administrator of a defense manufacturing firm set off a logic bomb that deleted his former company\'s sole copy of the critical software from the server.

It was a centralized software that he alone had developed and managed, and that he alone had the backups for. His revenge, served hot, cost the company $10 million and resulted in the layoff of 80 employees.

Such is the story relayed by a [url=\"http://www.cert.org/archive/pdf/insidercross051105.pdf\"][u]study[/u][/url] paid for by the Department of Homeland Security about corporate insider computer sabotage. It isn\'t money that motivates them; it\'s revenge.

The study investigated six years worth of computer-sabotage cases over six years to deduce what insiders\' motives are, and the threat they pose to sensitive data networks.

Only studying 49 attacks between 1996 and 2002 that were relevant to national security, the study said most inside saboteurs were disgruntled current or former tech workers teed off about a range of issues including termination, disciplinary actions, and being passed over for promotion.

Some corporate avengers posted pornography on the employer\'s website.

The study identified several critical infrastructures that put national security most at risk when internal hackers strike.

These include:
• banking and finance
• information and telecommunications
• transportation
• postal and shipping
• emergency services
• continuity of government
• public health
• food
• energy
• water
• chemical industry and hazardous materials
• agriculture
• defense industrial base

Instances where information was stolen for sale or blackmail were not included in the study.

[Trinity]

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