Book Description
The book covers a decade of work with some of the largest commercial and government agencies around the world in addressing cyber security related to malicious insiders (trusted employees, contractors, and partners). It explores organized crime, terrorist threats, and hackers. It addresses the steps organizations must take to address insider threats at a people, process, and technology level.
Todays headlines are littered with news of identity thieves, organized cyber criminals, corporate espionage, nation-state threats, and terrorists. They represent the next wave of security threats but still possess nowhere near the devastating potential of the most insidious threat: the insider. This is not the bored 16-year-old hacker. We are talking about insiders like you and me, trusted employees with access to information - consultants, contractors, partners, visitors, vendors, and cleaning crews. Anyone in an organizations building or networks that possesses some level of trust.
* Full coverage of this hot topic for virtually every global 5000 organization, government agency, and individual interested in security.
* Brian Contos is the Chief Security Officer for one of the most well known, profitable and respected security software companies in the U.S.ArcSight.
Customer Reviews:
Real Life Security Stories.......2007-04-13
'Enemy at the Water Cooler: Real-Life Stories of Insider Threats and Enterprise Security Management Countermeasures' by Brian Contos is an interesting look at some real-life situations that have occurred where nasties have gotten into systems and wrecked the havoc that they are looking to cause. While some reviewers have argued that this book is just a sales pitch to go out and buy anti-hacker software and hardware to combat these criminals, they are probably right!!! Security is always a matter of finding the right balance but certainly erring on the side of caution certainly is the safer way to go in most cases!!
Good book for IT people and specifically security whizzes to take a look at.
**** RECOMMENDED
"If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem is a nail." .......2007-01-09
Ignore the main title - look at the subtitle. This book is little more than a sales pitch for Enterprise Security Management systems, or more specifically the ESM sold by the author's company, with a random assortment of largely unattributed and barely analyzed anecdotes on information security incidents mostly relating to ESM. The link to "insider threats' is tenuous at best and in the most part is merely used as an excuse to hype the wonders of ESM.
If you are seriously interested in ESM, you probably wrote the gushing "review notes" on the cover or the foreword (written by Hugh Njemanze, CTO of - you guessed it - the same ESM company). I'm far from convinced that anyone else (except perhaps from the ESM company and its customers who may be happy with an extremely biased view of the value of ESM) would benefit from this book, even if it is "vendor neutral" (page xxii). If you are looking for some meaningful insight into and analysis of the "insider threat", and perhaps some practical and worthwhile countermeasures apart from ESM, look elsewhere.
Explores an important often neglected topic.......2006-12-01
Even though hacker Kevin Mitnick's notorious exploits are more than a decade old, the media, and even some security professionals, continue to be obsessed with him. In early October 2006 alone, his name came up a few dozen times in a search of the prior month of Google News. Those obsessed with hackers are missing the far greater threat: trusted insiders.
The insider threat shouldn't be a surprise: employee theft takes a bigger bite out of retailers than does shoplifting, and company personnel give away more secrets than are stolen by spies.
On average, authorized network users gain access to 10 to 20 times more resources than they need to perform their jobs, and this extra access leads to most network security breaches. With that as its starting point, Enemy at the Water Cooler looks at the problem of the trusted insider and how to reduce both the threat and the vulnerability. Author Brian Contos astutely notes that insider attacks are the hardest ones to defend against, detect, and manage.
The first part of the book sketches the risks that insiders pose to an organization. It also details mechanisms that can be used to control these risks.
One such solution is ESM (Enterprise Security Management) software. (Full disclosure: the author is the CSO for a leading ESM vendor and some of the illustrations in the book are screenshots from this vendor's product.) ESM software centrally collects and analyzes log data from various entities within a network. When correctly deployed, ESM can be used to discover internal risks, in addition to correlating security information and performing other valuable tasks.
The final chapters of the book run through real-life case studies in which Contos shows how ESM mitigated, or could have mitigated, the risk.
Although the book has a lot of information, at $49.95 for fewer than 250 pages, the book is overpriced. Even though it can come across as self-serving, the book should be commended for tackling a vital and often neglected topic.
Great information and case studies - great book.......2006-11-15
This book was extremely easy to read and enjoyable. The case studies made complex concepts such as collaborative attacks and advanced intruder discovery/remediation techniques understandable. I've even shared the case studies with my management as examples of risk to help push our insider threat program forward. I found that sharing key case studies that are relevant to our business helped to make my point about why we need to pay more attention to threats from the inside. And the way the book is written, I don't need to translate tech talk to business talk.
In addition to the insider threat information, the initial chapter that gives an overview of computer-based threats from organized crime, nation-states and terrorist was an eyeopener. The author does an excellent job explaining how these groups use insiders (employees mostly) to help carryout their agendas.
Since reading the book I've also listened to several webcasts and podcasts from the author. I found these to be informative and in several instances, the case studies from the book are explored in even more detail as the author discusses subtitle points that aren't necessarily covered in the book.
I've read a few books on insider threat now, and this is by far one of my favorites, and more so, it has shown great utility at work. Engineers like it, and so does my senior management.
too relevant for today's security world.......2006-11-15
great problem statement and introduction to the overall issues and background surrounding insider threat. Insider threat is one of the hardest problems to understand and address in today's fast moving technology rich organizations. The author seems to have real world experience in dealing with these types of issues and I really enjoyed the insights especially in the use case examples. A nice read.
thanks
Book Description
The Secret Service, FBI, NSA, CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) and George Washington University have all identified Insider Threats as one of the most significant challenges facing IT, security, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals today.
This book will teach IT professional and law enforcement officials about the dangers posed by insiders to their IT infrastructure and how to mitigate these risks by designing and implementing secure IT systems as well as security and human resource policies. The book will begin by identifying the types of insiders who are most likely to pose a threat. Next, the reader will learn about the variety of tools and attacks used by insiders to commit their crimes including: encryption, steganography, and social engineering. The book will then specifically address the dangers faced by corporations and government agencies. Finally, the reader will learn how to design effective security systems to prevent insider attacks and how to investigate insider security breeches that do occur.
Throughout the book, the authors will use their backgrounds in the CIA to analyze several, high-profile cases involving insider threats.
* Tackles one of the most significant challenges facing IT, security, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals today
* Both co-authors worked for several years at the CIA, and they use this experience to analyze several high-profile cases involving insider threat attacks
* Despite the frequency and harm caused by insider attacks, there are no competing books on this topic.books on this topic
Customer Reviews:
Interesting read.......2006-11-15
Books on insider threats are hard to find, and this one does a good job detailing the issue. The first chapter was full of great content.
AN INSIDE JOB!!.......2006-10-22
Do you know how to prevent employees and contractors from stealing your corporate data? If you don't, then this book is for you. Authors Eric Cole and Sandra Ring, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that shows you how to protect your enterprise from sabotage, spying and theft.
Cole and Sandra Ring, begin with an introduction on how bad the insider threat problem really is and why you should be concerned about it. Then, the authors cover a wide range of technologies and methods that can be used by an insider to cause harm to a company. Next, they discuss unique insider threats to state and local government institutions. The authors continue by drawing your attention to the fact that insiders within the federal government do not just commit espionage. They also discuss various threats to information, such as sabotage and theft, the impact of these actions to the reputation and financial health of organizations, and describe several real-life case studies involving well-known commercial companies. Next, the authors highlight the threat of identity theft and what institutions can do to help prevent insiders from participating in fraud rings. The authors also focus on insider threats from government contractors. Then, they do a profile of insider threats. The authors continue by showing you how to respond to problem of insider threat by looking at technologies and concepts that can be used to control and limit the damage that insiders can perform. Finally, they examine how a company goes about surviving an insider threat and increasing their defenses over time to minimize the amount of damage it will cause.
This most excellent book will show you why internal threats are exponentially more dangerous that external threats. More importantly, this book will show you how to protect your most important intellectual property assets.
Good information, but difficult to read.......2006-05-26
I understand the problems involved in attaining perfection in publishing. In fact, perfection isn't possible, but problems I've encountered in two of your books (Perfect Passwords and Insider Threat) are so far beyond the norm that I must comment.
Perfect Passwords has several lists that are useless. Page after page of random seed words, more pages of random numbers, and (worst of all) several pages of bad passwords. Omitting these list would have reduced the page count by 42 without harming the message at all. Perfect Passwords was short enough that I managed to force myself to finish it.
I may not be able to get through Insider Threat, though. The author (whether Cole or Ring isn't clear) keeps referring to himself (or herself) in the first person. This book has an author and a co-author, so "I" is meaningless, distracting, and annoying. It reads as if it has been written by a high school sophomore. The book is repetitive, filled with trite phrases, and contains a variety of errors that suggest a lack of editing.
Example (page vii, in the introduction): "Eric is an invited keynote speaker ...." What other kind is there? Do keynote speakers ever just barge in and take over a meeting?
Example (page 12): "But what else is he accessing either deliberately or on purpose?" "Deliberately" and "on purpose" are synonyms in all variants of English with which I am familiar.
Rubber hitting the road, needles in haystacks, and grains of sand on all the beaches occur with distressing frequency and I'm only on page 37 of a nearly 400-page book.
Example (page 17): "[T]hey have times where revenue is high and they have times when revenue is low." Times are always "when", not "where".
Example (page 30): "Insiders that cause harm to the organization have visible showed behavioral and professional problems." I wonder what that means in English. Although "that" should be "who", I'm willing to let that slide under the needle in the haystack so that we won't get a flat tire when the rubber hits the road. But what are "visible showed behavioral and professional problems"?
I'll probably keep slogging my way through this morass of tortured writing and non-editing because the information is useful and I paid for the book. But it's doubtful that I'll purchase any more books with the Syngress imprint.
An important warning for those ignoring internal attackers.......2006-03-11
Those who want to understand the nature of internal attackers should read Insider Threat. The book combines general recommendations to detect and thwart internal attackers with case studies discussing fraud, espionage, and other unfortunate events. Insider Threat could benefit from a tighter focus and better presentation of material, but the core message is still noteworthy.
Insider Threat is unlike other threat-centric books published by Syngress. Inside the Spam Cartel, for example, is written by an anonymous spammer. Software Piracy Exposed is written by a reporter who gained the trust of the pirate underground. Insider Threat is written by security consultants who have to deal with the consequences of internal attacks. The real-world component appears in chapters 3-7, where case studies are presented. Some of these case studies feature comments from the perpetrators, but none are interviews with the perpetrators. I would have liked to have seen some first-hand reporting on these individuals, as appeared in Software Piracy Exposed.
Outside of the case studies, the advice in Insider Threat is sound. I was very glad to see the authors' insistence on monitoring and the recognition that prevention eventually fails. I would have liked to have seen a fictional case study showing how an internal attack was detected, tracked, and then thwarted using the authors' recommendations.
With respect to the authors' commentary and suggestions, that material seemed internally repetitive and spread thinly throughout the book. The book could really be reduced to 7 chapters, plus my recommended new case study: (1) intro to inside threat; (2-6) current chapters 3-7; (7) fictional case study; (8) recommendations to counter inside threat.
Incidentally, I agree with Thomas Duff's earlier comments. Combining better internal presentation with reorganization of material would make for a strong second edition of Insider Threat.
A guide which focuses on corporate data theft and its prevention.......2006-03-06
Dr. Eric Cole and Sandra Ring's Insider Threat: Protecting The Enterprise From Sabotage, Spying, And Theft explains how insider attacks often occur within organizations themselves, showing risk facts, methods, and how to recognize the first signs of an insider conspiracy routine. Learn how technology can thwart such attacks, define an acceptable level of loss in the process, and learn how to screen new hires and protect intellectual property assets with a guide which focuses on corporate data theft and its prevention.
Book Description
Government and companies have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the convergence of physical and logical security solutions, but there are no books on the topic.
This book begins with an overall explanation of information security, physical security, and why approaching these two different types of security in one way (called convergence) is so critical in todays changing security landscape. It then details enterprise security management as it relates to incident detection and incident management. This is followed by detailed examples of implementation, taking the reader through cases addressing various physical security technologies such as: video surveillance, HVAC, RFID, access controls, biometrics, and more.
*This topic is picking up momentum every day with every new computer exploit, announcement of a malicious insider, or issues related to terrorists, organized crime, and nation-state threats
*The author has over a decade of real-world security and management expertise developed in some of the most sensitive and mission-critical environments in the world
*Enterprise Security Management (ESM) is deployed in tens of thousands of organizations worldwide
Product Description
This is a AIR FORCE INST OF TECH WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB OH SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A311514. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: As one of our nation's top critical infrastructures, telecommunications is an essential element of many aspects of our lives upon which we, as a society, are becoming increasingly dependent. Computers, digital telephone switches, and interconnected information technology (IT) systems impact finances, travel, infrastructure management, and missions of national defense. This research examined whether the trend in increased outsourcing of information technology systems is a significant contributing factor to a reportedly increasing amount of insider attacks. In light of changing social, global economic, and technological conditions, the paradigm in which risk analysis, management practices, and operational and personnel security practices are applied to protect information has shifted over the last decade. A comprehensive model of the discursive nature of the insider threat in the outsourced IT environment was developed using a qualitative grounded theory approach put forth by Glaser and Strauss in 1967. The theory generated by this research suggests a multidimensional real and growing threat resulting from outsourced IT as well as preconditions for continued future growth of the insider threat phenomenon.
Average customer rating:
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Understanding the Insider Threat: Proceedings of a March 2004 Workshop
Robert H. Anderson
Manufacturer: RAND Corporation
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ASIN: 0833036807 |
Book Description
Reports the results of a workshop on ensuring to the security of information againist malevolent actions by insiders in the intelligence community with access to sensitive information and information systems.
Product Description
This book collects articles presented or published by Drell on physics, physicists, Andrei Sakharov, the Cold War years, deterrence and arms control, Star Wars and scientists, progress, and prospects after the Cold War. Drell, deputy director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and a past president of the American Physical Society, has long been active in international arms control issues, science policy, and human rights.
"Brilliant expositions on elementary particle physics, and graceful eulogies on several well known physicists." Physics World "The book exudes the warmth of its author. It is often moving, at times funny, never dull, and sometimes quite profound." American Journal of Physics In the Shadow of the Bomb probes the theoretical constraints that underlie science policy questions, addresses past and developing themes in the arms control and national security debate, and discusses the underpinnings and morality of nuclear deterrence. Includes Drell's personal reminiscences of friends and colleagues, among them, Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky, T.D. Lee, and Victor F. Weisskopf. Several essays are devoted to Andrei Sakharov, with whom Drell enjoyed a close friendship.
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The Insider Threat
Rob Norman
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
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ASIN: 0595320929 |
Book Description
Danny Weeks is a disillusioned IT consultant with one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the world. On the surface he has everything going for him: a great job, a loving wife, and a solid future with the firm. His distant dreams of one day becoming a partner with the firm, however, are quickly sidetracked when he meets the notorious, but 'reformed' computer hacker, Grady Bartow.
What starts as a casual friendship turns into a reluctant partnership resulting in a twisting adventure of computer crime targeting some of the firm's biggest clients. As their money-making scheme begins to flourish, Danny's relationship with Grady quickly breaks down as Grady risks everything by flashing his new cash around to impress the girl who jilted him.
As the walls of paranoia close in around Danny, he is forced to make life or death decisions in order to stay a step ahead of federal investigators and to protect his wife, at any cost, from the truth about their new found wealth.
Download Description
Danny Weeks is a disillusioned IT consultant with one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the world. On the surface he has everything going for him: a great job, a loving wife, and a solid future with the firm. His distant dreams of one day becoming a partner with the firm, however, are quickly sidetracked when he meets the notorious, but
Customer Reviews:
From the author..........2004-08-31
Danny Weeks is a disillusioned IT consultant with one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the world. On the surface he has everything going for him: a great job, a loving wife, and a solid future with the firm. His distant dreams of one day becoming a partner with the firm, however, are quickly sidetracked when he meets the notorious, but `reformed' computer hacker, Grady Bartow.
What starts as a casual friendship turns into a reluctant partnership resulting in a twisting adventure of computer crime targeting some of the firm's biggest clients. As their money-making scheme begins to flourish, Danny's relationship with Grady quickly breaks down as Grady risks everything by flashing his new cash around to impress the girl who jilted him.
As the walls of paranoia close in around Danny, he is forced to make life or death decisions in order to stay a step ahead of federal investigators and to protect his wife, at any cost, from the truth about their new found wealth.
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