Threats from all directions
Ask yourself...
Why do people join organizations with excitement and passion and then end up disengaging, or worse, committing workplace sabotage?
Why don't insiders fully engage in security? What do they seem distracted at the expense of vigilance for cyber security phishing traps?
Why when boarding an aircraft do we notice that security and onboarding airline agents are simply going through the motions of checking photo ID?
Why should it not be a surprise that employees cheat a little bit? Why do even the most honest and conscientious employees sometimes go completely off the rails into the dark world of occupational fraud, theft, embezzlement and corruption?
Why is it people respond to aggression, with aggression? Why does someone that human resources and managers would have never have imagined in their wildest dreams, become an active insider shooter?
Why is that employees are completely unaware when their judgment or decisions are biased?
Insider Threats
From human behavioral biology and related science, singularly, the most influential factor on your insiders' behavior is the environment they work and live in.
The ATRiM Group added insider environmental threat risk assessment as an essential compliment to anti-terror and other crime threat controls. threats. When insider engagement, attention (focus) and resilience are low, it increases the likelihood of successful attack from the outside. Additionally, unhealthy workplace environments predictably increase other exposures; including cybersecurity threats and more insidiously, workplace sabotage and workplace violence. It is not a quantum leap to make a connection between workplace environment and occupational fraud, theft and corruption.
A nugget: Evolution is a tinkerer, not a builder
Post-incident analysis of observed human behavior must always factor context. Insider behavior is complicated and at times based in some pretty weird biology wiring from evolution that always introduces uncertainty and unpredictability to insider risk identification and mitigation.
Why do people join organizations with excitement and passion and then end up disengaging, or worse, committing workplace sabotage?
Why don't insiders fully engage in security? What do they seem distracted at the expense of vigilance for cyber security phishing traps?
Why when boarding an aircraft do we notice that security and onboarding airline agents are simply going through the motions of checking photo ID?
Why should it not be a surprise that employees cheat a little bit? Why do even the most honest and conscientious employees sometimes go completely off the rails into the dark world of occupational fraud, theft, embezzlement and corruption?
Why is it people respond to aggression, with aggression? Why does someone that human resources and managers would have never have imagined in their wildest dreams, become an active insider shooter?
Why is that employees are completely unaware when their judgment or decisions are biased?
Insider Threats
From human behavioral biology and related science, singularly, the most influential factor on your insiders' behavior is the environment they work and live in.
The ATRiM Group added insider environmental threat risk assessment as an essential compliment to anti-terror and other crime threat controls. threats. When insider engagement, attention (focus) and resilience are low, it increases the likelihood of successful attack from the outside. Additionally, unhealthy workplace environments predictably increase other exposures; including cybersecurity threats and more insidiously, workplace sabotage and workplace violence. It is not a quantum leap to make a connection between workplace environment and occupational fraud, theft and corruption.
A nugget: Evolution is a tinkerer, not a builder
Post-incident analysis of observed human behavior must always factor context. Insider behavior is complicated and at times based in some pretty weird biology wiring from evolution that always introduces uncertainty and unpredictability to insider risk identification and mitigation.
Environmental Controls
Executives and senior managements communicate messages to employees through their body language, words and deeds; whether they know it, or not. Establishing effective insider controls begins with setting and maintaining the tone from the top, combined with constant reinforcement of the organizations values. Employee's perception of the organization they work for is heavily influenced by how they are treated by their supervisors and line managers. We assess workplace environment in several categories for policies, guidelines and practices that erode resilience (emotions), which are potential triggers to negative employee behaviors and provide employees with rationalizations or excuses when they are tempted to do bad things.
Insider Cybersecurity Risk Mitigation
With stick to our own knitting. Thus, the ATRiM Group forms partnerships with like-minded subject matter specialists on cybersecurity threats. These partners include Cyber Security Canada and Australia's Naked Insider Both these partners are going the extra mile to get to the roots of insider cybersecurity threats. Specialized areas of competency for these companies include: i) procedures, policies and technologies to address insider threats; ii) creating cooperation synergies for detecting, preventing and responding to insider threats; iii) education on insider threats; iv) assistance to those dealing with and managing insider threats; and iv) steps and techniques for engaging insiders in threat prevention, detection and response.
Occupational Fraud, Theft and Corruption
The ATRiM Group partners to-the-need with subject matter expert competency in occupational fraud, theft and corruption threat risk assessments; compliant with the standards established by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) Internal Controls – Integrated Framework. We can add our insights from crime prevention, social psychology and behavioral biology science. We have conducted significant research on how affect (emotions) influences perception and informs intuition, judgment and complex decision-making. We are familiar with the science on heuristics bias (cognitive shortcuts) and implicit biases (affect based). We offer workshops on emotional intelligence and ethical investigative interviewing.
Workplace Sabotage and Workplace Violence
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Whether as individuals, or as groups, terrorists, other types of outside predators and insiders don't predictably react precisely the same way, with any high degree of certainty to any given situation. Insiders don't respond homogeneously to any given law, regulation, policy or guideline. Getting to root of why people behave the way they do is all about context.
The brain is a "predictive machine" (Lisa Feldman Barrett) geared to survival. It reacts to, and can often be inappropriately dominated by, sensory information and prior emotions-laden experiences influencing perception, intuition, time-sensitive judgment and decision-making. There is a lot happening below levels of conscious awareness in are region of the brain called the limbic system. It is ancient region shared at different levels of complexity with other mammals. It is wrapped around the brain stem like a bagel on the end of stick. It sends action potentials (signals) to all other regions of the brain along neural network pathways. This automatic/experiential center is regulated by the most recent part of human brain to development. The center of conscious awareness (language, math, problem-solving etc.). it is located in the pre-frontal cortex (behind the forehead). It can get hi-jacked by emotions reactions from the limbic system. This is all the stuff of psychological resiliency, and at its worst, to conditions like anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Thus, would it not make good sense to get a handle on this in order to get the best value for your security budget? |
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