Impact and Key Challenges of Insider Threats on Organizations and Critical Businesses
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School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, UK
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Department of Computing and Informatics, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth BH12 5BB, UK
3
Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
4
Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Electronics 2020, 9(9), 1460; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9091460
Received: 29 July 2020
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Revised: 26 August 2020
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Accepted: 27 August 2020
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Published: 7 September 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cybersecurity for Wireless Networking)
The insider threat has consistently been identified as a key threat to organizations and governments. Understanding the nature of insider threats and the related threat landscape can help in forming mitigation strategies, including non-technical means. In this paper, we survey and highlight challenges associated with the identification and detection of insider threats in both public and private sector organizations, especially those part of a nation’s critical infrastructure. We explore the utility of the cyber kill chain to understand insider threats, as well as understanding the underpinning human behavior and psychological factors. The existing defense techniques are discussed and critically analyzed, and improvements are suggested, in line with the current state-of-the-art cyber security requirements. Finally, open problems related to the insider threat are identified and future research directions are discussed.
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Keywords:
cyber kill chain; insider threat; attack vectors
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Saxena, N.; Hayes, E.; Bertino, E.; Ojo, P.; Choo, K.-K.R.; Burnap, P. Impact and Key Challenges of Insider Threats on Organizations and Critical Businesses. Electronics 2020, 9, 1460. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9091460
AMA Style
Saxena N, Hayes E, Bertino E, Ojo P, Choo K-KR, Burnap P. Impact and Key Challenges of Insider Threats on Organizations and Critical Businesses. Electronics. 2020; 9(9):1460. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9091460
Chicago/Turabian StyleSaxena, Neetesh, Emma Hayes, Elisa Bertino, Patrick Ojo, Kim-Kwang R. Choo, and Pete Burnap. 2020. "Impact and Key Challenges of Insider Threats on Organizations and Critical Businesses" Electronics 9, no. 9: 1460. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9091460
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