The Risk of the Insider Threat
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, sent an email to all employees over the weekend telling them that the company was hacked by an employee who changed code on an internal product and sent company data outside without permission.
The software, the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System, is likely used internally in the manufacturing process.
The employee created false user names and then modified the software without approval. He also sent large volumes of sensitive Tesla data to third parties.
This investigation is not over and there is a question about whether outsiders were involved. There are lots of people who do not like the idea of an electric car, starting with the oil and gas industry and some Wall Street insiders. The traditional car makers, who seem perfectly willing to lie and cheat to pass emissions test could also be motivated to harm Tesla.
In this particular case, the employee said he was mad because he was passed up for a promotion. THAT was probably a good move since it is going to be hard for him to work from prison.
This is an important notice for all employers.
Every company, except those with one or two employees, have employees who are not happy. Would an unhappy employee become a saboteur? Hopefully not, but the larger the company is, the more likely that at least one person will have a grudge and could, possibly, act on it.
In Tesla’s case, even though this person created fake accounts to try and hide his deeds, the company had sufficient tools in place to uncover the sabotage and figure out who the employee was.
For your company, how much damage could a disgruntled employee do and could you detect it? How quickly could you repair the damage? Could you figure out who did the damage in order to prevent a repeat performance?
In today’s world it probably does not take much to get just one employee really peeved and if you have someone outside the company who could motivate that action with money – well you have really increased the odds.
Information for this post came from CNBC.
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