This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Most office workers send dozens of electronic communications to colleagues in any given working day, through email, instant messaging and intranet systems. So many in fact that you might not notice subtle changes in the language your fellow employees use. Instead of ending their email with “See ya!”, they might suddenly offer you “Kind regards.” Instead of talking about “us,” they might refer to themselves more. Would you pick up on it if they did? These changes are important and could hint at a disgruntled employee about to go rogue. Our findings demonstrate how language may provide an indirect way of identifying employees who are undertaking an insider attack. My team has tested whether it’s possible to detect insider threats within a company just by looking at how employees communicate with each other. If a person is planning to act maliciously to ...
