Managing the Insider Threat

CHAPTER 9

Other Insider Threats

There are two kinds of light—the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

James Thurber

INTRODUCTION

Not every hostile insider poses an existential threat, nor does every threat penetrating the organization represent an insider attack. If we accept the proposition offered in the preceding chapter that existential insider threats are the most dangerous and will likely require more effort and a longer incubation period, it stands to reason that the institution will experience such menaces less frequently than other threats from within or which appear to be from within. Thus, nonexistential threats, meaning those that do not jeopardize the institution’s survival, are much more likely to surface and, by ...