Addressing the Insider Threat

In their guest editors' introduction to the special issue on Insider Threat, Shari Lawrence Pfleeger and Salvatore Stolfo describe a taxonomy of insiders and their unwelcome actions, as well as the need for credible data to document the size and nature of the insider threat. They suggest that the three articles in the special issue shed light not only on how to generate data for further study but also on how to use the data in models that can help evaluate the likely effects of various responses. The introduction ends with a matrix showing the variety of sensible and effective responses that must be sensitive to the organizations, systems, environments, and individuals involved with inappropriate insider behavior.