Toward an Insider Threat Education Platform: A Theoretical Literature Review
It addresses the problem of insider threat mitigation for organizations by synthesizing interdisciplinary research, but it is incremental as it reviews and organizes existing theories without new empirical results.
This literature review organizes existing research on insider threats from psychological, technical, and educational perspectives to inform the development of an education platform, claiming to be the first comprehensive study across all three approaches.
Insider threats (InTs) within organizations are small in number but have a disproportionate ability to damage systems, information, and infrastructure. Existing InT research studies the problem from psychological, technical, and educational perspectives. Proposed theories include research on psychological indicators, machine learning, user behavioral log analysis, and educational methods to teach employees recognition and mitigation techniques. Because InTs are a human problem, training methods that address InT detection from a behavioral perspective are critical. While numerous technological and psychological theories exist on detection, prevention, and mitigation, few training methods prioritize psychological indicators. This literature review studied peer-reviewed, InT research organized by subtopic and extracted critical theories from psychological, technical, and educational disciplines. In doing so, this is the first study to comprehensively organize research across all three approaches in a manner which properly informs the development of an InT education platform.