Research on mitigating the insider threat to information systems--#2

This is the second in a series of conference reports on the topic of R & D initiatives to mitigate and thwart the insider threat to critical U.S. defense and infrastructure information systems. (The first conference, held August 1999, is reported on in RAND/CF-151-OSD.) This August 2000 workshop's three main focus areas were long-term (2-5 year) research challenges and goals toward mitigating the insider threat; developing insider threat models; and developing near-term solutions using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and government off-the-shelf (GOTS) products. The long-term research recommendations stressed the need to develop an underlying system architecture designed explicitly with security and survivability in mind (unlike essentially all operating systems and network architectures in use today). Other topics included R & D needed on differential access controls, means of recording and saving the "provenance" of a digital document, and dealing with the increasing use of mobile code (e.g., in the form of "applets, " viruses, worms, or macros) in complex information systems. The report also contains a number of recommendations regarding the purposes and design of models of insider behavior, and near-term recommendations for helping to prevent, discover, and mitigate the threat of insider misuse of information systems.