The Insider: A True Story Reveals Threat Insiders Pose to Confidential and Proprietary Information
Author Dan Verton's Definitive Guide to Insider Security Risks Provides First Hard Evidence of the Amount and Extent of Private Information Leaving Corporate and Government Networks
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., July 25, 2005—The Insider: A True Story, by author and security expert Dan Verton, goes beyond surveys and news stories about identity theft and credit-card fraud to reveal the true extent of the insider threat to proprietary data and personal privacy. The book, published by Llumina Press, is a study of the little-known and little-understood threat that security breaches by insiders pose not only to personal, corporate, and governmental data but also to America’s economic competitiveness. The Insider is available today from on-line retailers such as www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com and at bookstores across the U.S.
Until now, industry and the media alike have focused on hackers and other threats from outside the network, and vendors have designed security systems to prevent outsiders from breaking into IT resources. Verton’s research found that the insider threat is very real in today’s corporate environment, as well as in government agencies. He backs his claims with statistical trends and blind data samples amassed by Reconnex Corporation using the company’s iGuard™ content-based security appliance, which has the unprecedented ability to analyze all content flowing over an enterprise’s network. Using the Reconnex iGuard, companies and government agencies have been able to detect the leakage of confidential and proprietary information originating from inside their organization from personnel considered as trusted insiders.
"The government and private sector are hemorrhaging secrets and identity information, and they don’t even know it," said Verton. "Organizations have relied on policies and procedures to ensure the security of proprietary and confidential information, but these mean little to a renegade insider. We now have the first hard evidence that such security measures are meaningless without a technology that can enforce them. In every organization where an insider breach occurred, standard security operating policies and procedures were bypassed creating gaping holes for the organization. Without automatic detection systems and an audit trail, government and private enterprise remain at risk."
The Insider: A True Story examines the psychology of insider data thieves and the changes in global competition—global rivalries centered on technology development and intellectual capital, outsourcing, and more—that are driving the growth of the insider threat. Verton also explores inappropriate use of corporate IT resources in industries such as financial services, technology, and healthcare, as well as in government agencies. Trends derived from blind analysis of terabytes of data collected by Reconnex back up Verton’s findings that the insider threat is more prevalent than traditionally thought.
Reconnex Is Changing the Face of SecurityThe book ends with a discussion of the Reconnex’s pioneering work in developing iGuard, the first appliance to address insider security breaches and provide comprehensive forensic analysis of data collected. "The Reconnex iGuard is changing the face of insider security and regulatory compliance," Verton said. "The system’s real-time content processing engine (RCPE) captures, classifies, reconstructs, and stores files and documents of all types so that organizations can know, for the first time, what exactly is leaving their networks and do something about the risk before it becomes front-page news."
Donald J. Massaro, founder and CEO of Reconnex, contributed an "Open Letter to CEOs" to The Insider: A True Story. "Most CEOs are still completely unaware of the insider threat to their business," said Massaro. "The Insider is a much needed wake-up call, alerting corporate America to a problem that literally threatens the security and prosperity of every business."
About Dan VertonIn addition to The Insider: A True Story, Dan Verton wrote the highly acclaimed book Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism (McGraw-Hill, 2003), endorsed by some of the nation’s top experts as one of the best descriptions of the terrorist threat to critical cyber infrastructure to date. He has presented his research on cyber-terrorism to the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Secret Service, The Air Force War College, and to other organizations as well as to colleges and universities. Verton is former Marine Corps intelligence officer.
About Reconnex
Reconnex is the leading provider of enterprise risk management (ERM) systems that reveal and address the insider threat to compliance risks, competitive risks, corporate governance risks and critical infrastructure risks. Reconnex enables Fortune 1000 companies, government organizations, and smaller healthcare and financial services companies to protect their brands, shareholder value and mission critical operations by revealing hidden risks in the first 48 hours of deployment. Without exception, every deployment has enabled these organizations to quickly remediate the risks that could have damaged or destroyed their organization.
Give us two days, you’ll know™ . Call Reconnex today at 1-866-940-4590 or visit us on the web at www.reconnex.net.
