There aren’t many things in enterprise IT security that are easy enough to do to be called a slam dunk, but I may have one for you. A recent study of IT managers and network administrators conducted by Amplitude Research on behalf of VanDyke Software, shows a growing concern about insider threats, particularly unauthorized access by current and former employees.
Unauthorized access by current and former employees was cited by 11% of the survey respondents, as a reason cited network intrusions, the 4th most frequent response. When the same question was asked in 2010, only 6% of those who reported experiencing an intrusion had referred to unauthorized access by current / former employees.
We talk all the time about the risks and challenges of managing the insider threat. Unfortunately, good people do bad things. But former employees? That’s pretty easy to address. As close to a slam dunk as it gets in enterprise IT security.
So what’s the answer? It’s pretty basic. If you don’t give out root passwords and link all your privileged access to user IDs in Active Directory then it’s as simple as having a procedure to deactivate AD accounts when an employee leaves the company.
But what about my Linux and Unix boxes? That’s pretty straight forward as well. Use an Active Directory bridge product like PowerBroker Identity Services for seamless integration of Linux, UNIX, and Mac OS X with Microsoft Active Directory. As close to a slam dunk as it gets.
