It’s the start of a new year and guess what? Insider threats strikes again! It was predicted late last year that in 2015 we would continue to see insider threats continue making headlines and stealing data or accidently losing data. We left the 2014 year learning that Sony’s hack involved an insider. This insider was a former employee who had technical background and system knowledge to carry out the attack.
Then at the beginning of this week we learn that an insider threat at Morgan Stanley stole data on the bank’s wealthiest clients. More than 350,000 of the bank’s wealthiest clients that is. The 30 year old rookie financial adviser has thus been fired, but managed to get at least 900 of the clients online. Yet in all of this none of the articles appear to have mentioned if the data was protected or not, which in the case of any data breach is now a no brainer.
Already a couple days in 2015 if we have not learned that it is important to protect the data by now, then this incident should be a good warning to all organization that the time is now to make sure data is protected. Being able to set certain permissions to certain users on certain files that contain this data is a start, in addition to be able to revoke access to the files and also being able to trace what the insider has been doing with those files.
There should be no more excuses for not encrypting your data especially with sensitive information such as in the case with Morgan Stanley. Fasoo data-centric solutions such as their digital rights management (DRM) solutions can provide the necessary protection in this case to prevent further damage in this case for both Sony and Morgan Stanley. Is it that hard for organization these days at least to consult with solution companies that could protect them from these kinds of data breaches? Let’s hope not, especially for the sake of the customers that are putting their trust in making sure their personal information is protected against these hackers.
Photo Credit: Ron Hovseplan
