Additional information (in)

Insider threats

An insider threat is a security risk that originates from within your own organization or environment. It typically involves a current or former employee or business associate who has access to sensitive information or privileged accounts within the network or a relative or "friend" who is "unhappy" or careless about something. A high percentage of security-breaches come from within your own environment.

Types of insider threats include:
-In organizations a malicious insider is also known as a Turncloak: someone who and intentionally steals information for financial or personal gains.
-Another insider threat often is a careless person who unknowingly exposes the system or your credentials to the outside world. This is the most common type of insider threat, resulting from mistakes, such as leaving a device exposed or falling victim to a scam.
-A third type of insider threats are "moles": technically outsiders who have insider access.

Insider threats are difficult to find: protective software like firewalls don't pick them up for example, it is for that reason that you will have to take a good look at the behaviour, like someone who logs on to the system from home in the middle of the night or in a more close environment someone who acts differently than they normally did or has a sudden interest in what you are doing, where that interest didn't exist before.

You might want to password-protect your pc and use two-step authentication. Keep your sensitive information in a safe spot and for organizations: tools like Machine Learning (ML) applications can help analyze the data stream and prioritize the most relevant alerts.

Instant Messaging attack / smishing

Instant messaging attack differs from smishing that instant messaging attacks happens on chatservers like Facebook messenger while smishing is aimed at short messaging (SMS).

These attacks can look very reliable, especially when it comes from a source that sends more messages regularly, but every message that looks different shouldn't be trusted: it happens very often that somebody's account or device has been conpromised.

Internet of Things (IoT) attack

The IoT is a the whole network of computers and other devices that are connected to each other or to the same network. This can include all kinds of home- and office devices like the light, the curtains, the refridgerator, the television etc. Some of these devices can be vulnerable to attacks because of lacking security in the design. This can be the case by cheap or misconfigurated hardware.

Through a vulnerability in one of the devices connected to a network, an attacker can get access to other devices in that same network too. Logically said: the more devices that are connected to a network, the more chances of security-breaches as well.

Prevention of intrusions could be letting all data traffic pass through a firewall and configure it well.