Behaviour of outsourced employees as sources of information system security threats

David Oyebisi, Kennedy Njenga

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

There is an increased need for information systems to be protected against unauthorized access and retrieval, particularly from legitimate ‘insider’ outsourced employees. While most studies have focused on organisations’ employees as threats, only a few have focused on the role the outsourced employees’ play as a potential threat. The study seeks to investigate the insider threat behaviour of an outsourced employee in developing countries as security threats to information systems by virtue of their privileged access. The study is quantitative and adopts social bond and involvement theories for this purpose. The research sample was chosen from organisations in Nigeria and South Africa which are the largest two national economies in Africa. Close-ended questionnaires were used and the data were analysed using factor analysis. The study found that outsourced employees exploit information systems vulnerabilities because they are not actively involved in the organisation and lack moral values and beliefs. The findings of this study will assist organisations in developing countries to mitigate the information security threats posed by outsourced employees.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationFinancial Cryptography and Data Security - FC 2020 International Workshops, AsiaUSEC, CoDeFi, VOTING, and WTSC, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsMatthew Bernhard, Andrea Bracciali, L. Jean Camp, Shin’ichiro Matsuo, Alana Maurushat, Peter B. Rønne, Massimiliano Sala
PublisherSpringer
Pages137-148
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783030544546
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020
Event1st Asian Workshop on Usable Security, AsiaUSEC 2020, the 1st Workshop on Coordination of Decentralized Finance, CoDeFi 2020, the 5th Workshop on Advances in Secure Electronic Voting, VOTING 2020, and the 4th Workshop on Trusted Smart Contracts, WTSC 2020, held at the 24th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2020 - Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Duration: 14 Feb 202014 Feb 2020

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12063 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference1st Asian Workshop on Usable Security, AsiaUSEC 2020, the 1st Workshop on Coordination of Decentralized Finance, CoDeFi 2020, the 5th Workshop on Advances in Secure Electronic Voting, VOTING 2020, and the 4th Workshop on Trusted Smart Contracts, WTSC 2020, held at the 24th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, FC 2020
Country/TerritoryMalaysia
CityKota Kinabalu
Period14/02/2014/02/20

Keywords

  • Digital data
  • Insider threat
  • Outsourced employee

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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