Attack Prevention

Attack Prevention Paper- Internal Attacks

CMGT/441

March 17, 2014

Attack Prevention Paper- Internal Attacks

It is no secret that companies spend a majority of their security budget on protecting they’re networks from attacks. Security monitoring is a major key to any successful company or organization. With so many attack vectors and vulnerabilities, management in most organizations has made security the number one priority. Security monitoring involves a wide array of functions, and while the routine security analyst may attribute the security breaches to external attacks, most breaches are internal, because of lack of training or end user negligence.

The first step in protecting a company’s assets from internal attacks is to identify and classify what those assets are. Where they are stored, how it is accessed, and who has access to it, and what controls are currently in place to protect it. The list of personnel should be reviewed against job roles to ensure only those employees that need access to conduct their daily responsibilities have access.

Most companies monitor who has access to what information by setting up group policies and limiting access to information on a need to know basis, regardless of their position or managerial status within the company. From a security point of view yearly training in most successful companies is required in order to maintain a clear level of understanding security protocol.

The next step is to know your vulnerabilities. Organizations must know they’re weaknesses so they are not exposed to security risks that might aid an attacker in compromising an organization’s data. Internal Penetration Testing examines the security of internally connected systems. Internal Penetration Testing involves finding known and unknown vulnerabilities from the view of the internal attacker.

Because they have knowledge of internal systems, policy, and server...