You are never more vulnerable to information abuse and theft than during a recession. Put your independent information security consultant into overdrive. Skimp on something else to save money.
A cautionary tale...
An insider at the California Water Service Company in San Jose broke into the company's computer system and transferred $9 million into offshore bank accounts and fled the country.
Abdirahman Ismail Abdi, 32, was an auditor for the water company, which delivers drinking water throughout the state and is located in San Jose, Calif. Abdi resigned from his position on April 27. Allegedly, that night he went back to work and made three wire transfers totaling more than $9 million from the company's accounts to an account in Qatar.
Abdi is not a U.S. citizen and was ordered deported to Somalia in 2005, the Mercury News reported. (Don't skimp on background checks either.)
“The downturn in the economy is raising the internal security threat levels dramatically, as more and more disgruntled ex-employees take advantage of the fact that their ex-employer did not decommission their access credentials,” Torsten George, vice president, worldwide marketing, ActivIdentity, told SCMagazineUS.com on Friday in an email.
According to a survey of more than 200 organizations globally conducted by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the number one security problem reported by IT security auditors was “excessive access rights.”
The buzz...
In addition, only 28 percent of respondents rated themselves as “very confident” or “extremely confident” with regard to internal threats, which is down from 51 percent in 2008.
Companies can protect sensitive data by limiting information access to only those employees who must have it, the survey said. (more)
