TABLE OF CONTENTS Introducing Adversary Characterization
Cyber Terrorist: A Media buzzword?
Failures of Existing Models
An Introduction to Characterization Theory
When you picked this book from the shelf, chances are you did it for one of two reasons: from mere curiosity about the subject matter or because you felt that it will give you a better understanding of whom you are protecting your assets against and how you can do a better job at that task. Systems administrators and other IT professionals often find ourselves looking for a better understanding of who it is that we are protecting our assets against; this often creates a feeling of insecurity or vulnerability the not knowing factor.
The not knowing feeling can be introduced into the equation at multiple levels, and not always directly related to the administration of computer networks. Perhaps you re a member of your firm s human resources department, unsure whether the young systems administrator you just hired may one day turn on the firm, causing damage to company assets on a massive scale. And whose fault would it be if that were to happen? So perhaps you should not take the risk and just find another candidate. Does his young age and lack of experience on a large corporate network make it more likely that he constitutes an insider threat to your organization? That perhaps one day he will turn against the company, giving systems access to his so-called friends on an Internet Relay Chat channel he...
