In order to put a face on the depth and breadth of potential insiders that can be found throughout your enterprise, I will introduce you to three insider villains and three insider heroes. Each villain will represent one of the key misuse of privileges and each hero will represent key values delivered by least privilege. This third introduction will be of the most unlikely villain.
Accidental misuse of privilege is commonplace throughout your organization. Why? Because human nature dictate that we will make mistakes and if your employees are over privileged on their IT resources then that can lead to costly mistakes. To better examine this type of privilege misuse I’d like to introduce you to “Accident Prone Annie.”
Annie is your typical business user who accidental may be misusing their privileges to do things that are against corporate policy (i.e. downloading software off the web or upgrading applications before IT approves) and reeking havoc on the help desk.
Accidental misuse of privileges on desktops and servers does happen, and it does have a measurable impact on the organization as a whole. For example, desktop configuration errors cost companies an average of $120/PC, according to IDC report, “The Relationship between IT Labor Costs and Best Practices for IAM.”
As one famous hacker said, “The weakest link in any network is its people.” The most fortified network is still vulnerable if users can be tricked into undermining its security — for example, by giving away passwords or other confidential data over the phone, or performing some activity that allows malware to hijack admin rights on desktops.
