4.3 Insider Threats
Insider Threats
For this weeks blog I wanted to go over the topic of insider threats within TSA. When I first enlisted into the military and went onto my first duty station in Montana, we were constantly making sure that there were no insider threats due to the nature of the mission. Now when I was longer I thought it was ridiculous, I thought to myself why would anyone want to be an insider threat? There were a lot of authenticating and trusting and verifying procedures. As I matured I realized that it is a possibility and that there have been a lot of cases of insider threat and its not just being paranoid.
Within TSA they have been proactive when it comes to recognizing insider threats. As recently as 2019 terrorists have sought to leverage insiders to conduct attacks on the transportation system (TSA 19). TSA wants to create a security culture by taking responsibility of their actions and holding the standard to their counterparts. TSA also made a priority list that includes, promote meaningful data-driven decision making, advance operational capability priority and mature the capability of the transportation systems sector. They believe that in order to mitigate insider threat they need to be able to detect it.
TSA will work together with federal agencies, state and local authorities and by doing that it will encourage and help develop security standards. They will also increase awareness and stay prepared by encouraging community action.
Josh,
ReplyDeleteThis was a very intriguing topic, and you made many good points. I have recently been taking over the Security Manager position at work and working on the training to take the job. Almost every one of the training courses has had some mention of insider threats. There was even a 2-hour training just on this topic alone.
There is a case study on Mostafa Ahmed Awwad, who was convicted of attempted espionage. This man was a civil engineer working on the designs for the USS Ford. He had attempted to leak classified information by installing a computer program onto the ship's computers to leak the information. Fortunately, the FBI was able to go undercover, posing as an Egyptian intelligence officer, and offer a higher price than competing offers, leading to the arrest and 11-year sentencing of Awwad.
If Awwad was successful in his espionage attempt, billions of dollars in research and development of the nuclear aircraft carrier could have been wasted.
-Brandon