The old cliche from all those old cop shows, “it was an inside job,” has never rung more true today than ever when it comes to cybercrime. SC Magazine recently did a story about Texas woman who was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for stealing the personal information of patients while she was employed by a medical billing contractor. The cyber criminal, Katina Candrick, 34, was also ordered to pay more than $163,000 in restitution.

When Candrick was arrested in December 2009, she was living under the name of a person whose identity she had stolen and she used stolen personal identification information of others to pay for living expenses, vehicles and other items.

This was clearly an inside job. Joe Gottlieb, CEO of SenSage, told SC Magazine that cybercrimes involving insiders often are committed by employees who have access to sensitive data, and their company fails to perform any monitoring, he said. The case also is an example of the slow, steady increase in successful cybercrime prosecutions. He also said that “the 15-year sentence is substantial and thus helps establish the deterrent of real punishment that has generally been missing in the cybercrime world.”

15 year sentence = good. Rise in insider threats = not good. Beyond doing the standard background checks (via Human Resources), what can organizations do to prevent insider threats? Companies entrust their employees with very sensitive information. Certainly there is more that can be done. Welcome all thoughts comments and feedback.

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