Employees are an organisations’ most important asset. They are also both a security strength and a security weakness, especially where employees are complacent (ignore security practices) or ignorant (don’t understand, or haven’t been properly trained on, security practices). Human Intelligence (HUMINT) techniques can be used against willing or vulnerable employees to provide information, either willingly or via coercion, creating an insider threat. However, HUMINT threats can be reduced through employee awareness of practices that enable them to identify and respond to potentially threatening situations, as well as through employment screening practices to weed out undesirable employees during recruitment. This article explores how HUMINT works and how associated techniques may be deployed to create an insider threat. Continue reading →