Case Studies of an Insider Framework

Much of the literature on insider threat assumes, explicitly or implicitly, a binary, perimeter-based notion of an insider. However, it is generally accepted that this notion is unrealistic. The attribute-based group access control (ABGAC) framework is a generalization of role-based access control (RBAC) which allows us to define a non-binary notion of "insiderness". In this paper, we illustrate how to use ABGAC to perform insider threat analysis of high-risk resources with three case studies. This precise yet flexible identification of high-risk resources and associated insiders allows organizations to understand where to target efforts towards defending against the insider problem.