So this is the case study
of an organization
that was essentially
infiltrated by someone who
had misplaced loyalties, he became
an insider threat and he reached
out to another company
which was owned by
a Chinese company, and
he essentially committed insider
threat activities and bankrupted
the company. So the case study
involves American superconductor,
that is a Massachusetts based
company, and their intellectual
property was stolen by the
Chinese company CENTAVO.
So Sunnyville made the skeletons
of these giant wind turbines
and American superconductor, made
the sophisticated gadgetry
and computer code that are inside
these turbines to run.
And the Chinese
company kept trying to figure out
how to make these these
widgets and they were unable to
do so. They just weren't
technologically advanced enough
and their processes to to make
that technology.
And they were essentially
dependent upon American
superconductor.
So American superconductor,
knowing this, they ensured that any
software pieces of code were
restricted in more accessible only
to a few people within the
corporation.
They obviously didn't want their
trade secrets exposed.
So an employee within American
superconductor, Dasia
Bostwick, he was based in Austria.
He essentially helped the Chinese
company Sentebale
perpetrate the theft of the
intellectual property.
And in that relationship,
CENTAVO offered him women
apartment money and a new life.
So kind of a conglomeration
of some of those motivating factors.
We saw some obviously money,
sex, and then this maybe
new life. So he might have had some
type of psychological issue
where he maybe did not value
his own self-worth.
But any of the arrangement included
a one point seven million
dollar contract, which
was spelled out in emails and
instant messages that were found on
his computer during that
forensic investigation.
And in one of those emails, he lays
out kind of the quid pro quo
arrangement, saying girls need
money, he needs the girls,
son of all, the Chinese company
needs him.
And then in return, the central
executive showered him with flattery
and encouragement,
saying, you are
the best man.
You're like Superman.
So they were kind of stoking
his ego.
They were giving him the money that
he needed.
But ultimately, what happened is
that he was caught.
However,
that's kind of after the fact.
And it was too
late for American superconductor.
They lost their intellectual
property. They tried to sue the
Chinese company, but then it was
too late. They've already lost
that thing. That makes them special
and unique.
So when dealing with these insider
threats, oftentimes
the response phase is not
necessarily where an organization
wants to be, because
if you're a Kentucky Fried Chicken
and you value those
herbs and spices that the colonel
had, and that
gets out to the public of how
the chickens made, it's
too late.
The response is essentially going
to come after the fact.
And as we talk about that below, the
iceberg cost,
those cost would be astronomical
because that is something that makes
your business very special and that
would almost be an insurmountable
object to overcome.
So what this portion
of the course is going to talk about
is not so much how to
respond to those cases,
because that would be
more than likely a large legal
response and not necessarily a
technical response.
We're going to focus mainly on
the technical aspects of preventing
and identifying insider threats
before they happen.
So you're not going to necessarily
have to do that incident response
in conjunction
with that insider threat.