SADLY, IT’S NOT POSSIBLE TO TRUST ALL PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME - Gwent Police, Wales, UK, May 2011
This is one of the more favored excuses used by organizations who prefer to show some attrition for taking their eye off the ball for a few days, months, years,… (fill in the blank) later.
In this case Gwent Police announced in May that 7 employees had been internally disciplined and one dismissed over the last three years for breaches of the Data Protection Act. Campaigning group Big Brother Watch said that the figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, showed four of those internally disciplined were police officers. All the cases were due to staff members viewing information on internal police computer systems, said Gwent Police, between May 2008 and May 2011.
The databases breached included the force’s intelligence system and the incident logging system. A Gwent Police spokeswoman said our computerized systems have stringent checking facilities in place to ensure as much as possible that only appropriately risk assessed staff members can view them,” she said.
“When there are breaches or potential breaches, they are investigated and dealt with in the most effective way and lessons are learned to ensure that risks are minimized.”
BeyondTrust says: "Sadly, eating humble pie, doesn't account for the fact that even with the most stringent employee vetting processes in place, you can't always rely on Trust alone, when it comes to mitigating insider threat. At all times, privileged access must be elevated dependent on each employees job role, as opposed to their rank, and even then, only when that employee needs such access."
Scott Lang, Sr. Director, Product Marketing at BeyondTrust
Scott Lang has nearly 20 years of experience in technology product marketing, currently guiding the product marketing strategy for BeyondTrust’s privileged account management solutions and vulnerability management solutions. Prior to joining BeyondTrust, Scott was director of security solution marketing at Dell, formerly Quest Software, where he was responsible for global security campaigns, product marketing for identity and access management and Windows server management.
