Disgruntled employees are newest kind of hacker

With the dawn of more business than ever being done over the Internet, companies will have to be aware of the new 21st century hacker -- disgruntled employees, said Rich Brewer, an International Data Corp. (IDC) analyst.

Brewer made his comments during Directions '99, held here earlier this week. IDC is a sister company of Computerworld.

The perception is that most hack attacks come from political activities and professional industrial thieves, but the reality is approximately 70% of attacks come from within a company, Brewer said. Most security breaches are committed through a bunch of holes, enabling hackers to steal assets and, more important, ideas, he said.

"Hackers are benefiting from a company's silence," Brewer said. According to the FBI, fewer than 3% of hack attacks were detected last year, and out of those, fewer than 1% were reported to the FBI, he added.

To defend against hack attacks, "products alone can't save" companies, Brewer said. Companies will have to look at all options: security consulting and implementation; managed firewalls; an intrusion, detection and response operation; and hacker insurance, he said.