Insider Threats (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

by Matthew Bunn (Author), Scott D. Sagan (Author)

New
Paperback
2017
$44.58

High-security organizations around the world face devastating threats from insiders-trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilities, and materials. From Edward Snowden to the Fort Hood shooter to the theft of nuclear materials, the threat from insiders is on the front page and at the top of the policy agenda. Insider Threats offers detailed case studies of insider disasters across a range of different types of institutions, from biological research laboratories, to nuclear power plants, to the U.S. Army. Matthew Bunn and Scott D. Sagan outline cognitive and organizational biases that lead organizations to downplay the insider threat, and they synthesize worst practices from these past mistakes, offering lessons that will be valuable for any organization with high security and a lot to lose.Insider threats pose dangers to anyone who handles information that is secret or proprietary, material that is highly valuable or hazardous, people who must be protected, or facilities that might be sabotaged. This is the first book to offer in-depth case studies across a range of industries and contexts, allowing entities such as nuclear facilities and casinos to learn from each other. It also offers an unprecedented analysis of terrorist thinking about using insiders to get fissile material or sabotage nuclear facilities.Contributors
Matthew Bunn, Harvard University
Andreas Hoelstad Daehli, Oslo
Kathryn M. Glynn, IBM Global Business Services
Thomas Hegghammer, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, Oslo
Austin Long, Columbia University
Scott D. Sagan, Stanford University
Ronald Schouten, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Jessica Stern, Harvard University
Amy B. Zegart, Stanford University

Synopsis

High-security organizations around the world face devastating threats from insiders-trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilities, and materials. From Edward Snowden to the Fort Hood shooter to the theft of nuclear materials, the threat from insiders is on the front page and at the top of the policy agenda. Insider Threats offers detailed case studies of insider disasters across a range of different types of institutions, from biological research laboratories, to nuclear power plants, to the U.S. Army. Matthew Bunn and Scott D. Sagan outline cognitive and organizational biases that lead organizations to downplay the insider threat, and they synthesize worst practices from these past mistakes, offering lessons that will be valuable for any organization with high security and a lot to lose.Insider threats pose dangers to anyone who handles information that is secret or proprietary, material that is highly valuable or hazardous, people who must be protected, or facilities that might be sabotaged. This is the first book to offer in-depth case studies across a range of industries and contexts, allowing entities such as nuclear facilities and casinos to learn from each other. It also offers an unprecedented analysis of terrorist thinking about using insiders to get fissile material or sabotage nuclear facilities.Contributors
Matthew Bunn, Harvard University
Andreas Hoelstad Daehli, Oslo
Kathryn M. Glynn, IBM Global Business Services
Thomas Hegghammer, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, Oslo
Austin Long, Columbia University
Scott D. Sagan, Stanford University
Ronald Schouten, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Jessica Stern, Harvard University
Amy B. Zegart, Stanford University

$44.58

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 216
Edition: 1
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 24 Jan 2017
ISBN 10: 1501705172
ISBN 13: 9781501705175

Media Reviews

Bureaucracies find it difficult to detect and mitigate insider threats. Once a problem emerges, they tend to tighten existing security measures while avoiding fundamental reforms that address real weaknesses. Insider Threats highlights how a variety of organizations have failed to address this security challenge and draws lessons for the most critical sector of all - the nuclear power industry. Matthew Bunn and Scott D. Sagan have produced a landmark study that redefines our understanding of safety and security when it comes to both the civilian and military nuclear complex. The organizational pathologies they identify are simply too dangerous to be ignored.

-- James J. Wirtz, Dean, School of International Graduate Studies, Naval Postgraduate School, coeditor of Strategy in the Contemporary World

This compendium of research on insider threats is essential reading for all personnel with accountabilities for security; it shows graphically the extent and persistence of the threat that all organizations face and against which they must take preventive measures.

-- Roger Howsley, Executive Director, World Institute for Nuclear Security

Insider Threats is well-written, even literary. Its chief lesson: organizations are rarely designed to catch the insider, and much work needs to be done to protect them.

-- Ross Johnson * Security Management *

Author Bio

Matthew Bunn is Professor of Practice at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is coeditor of Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation. Scott D. Sagan is Caroline S. G. Munro Professor of Political Science, Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is coeditor of Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Weapons, also from Cornell, and the author of The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons, among other books.