Author: Richard Benack

Richard BenackRichard Benack is a retired U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer with 20+ years of experience doing intelligence, counterterrorism, threat analysis, security assessments, and criminal investigations. He currently focuses on cloud security and compliance in the tech world, especially working with the public sector. Richard is also a Licensed Private Investigator and a Clinical Hypnotherapist in Washington State.

From the Fall 2024 Issue
From the Spring 2022 Issue

Social Cybersecurity: Protecting the Cognitive Domain from Hacking

Author(s):

Richard Benack, Principal Investigator, Hiperformance Security

When we traditionally discuss the term “cybersecurity”, we think in terms of protecting computer systems and the data that resides in them. We rarely think of protecting the people who manage this technology and its associated data. Coming from the intelligence world, it was taught to assume that the weakest link in any system or … Read more

From the Fall 2022 Issue

Using Behavior Profiling to Identify Insider Threats – Part 2

Author(s):

Richard Benack, Principal Investigator, Hiperformance Security

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INTRODUCTION In the previous article, we talked about the importance of identifying risky and threatening behavior from people working in an organization. But that is only half the story. The most important part of keeping an organization safe from insiders is detecting and countering threatening behavior. Detection and countering of insider threats requires both a … Read more

From the Summer 2022 Issue

Using Behavior Profiling to Identify Insider Threats – Part 1

Author(s):

Richard Benack, Principal Investigator, Hiperformance Security

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INTRODUCTION Organizations often spend significant time, effort and resources protecting their data and systems from external threats such as hackers, foreign spies, hacktivists, and cybercriminals. Internal threats, often called “insider threats”, are often ignored because they are much more challenging for an organization to address. One valuable tool for managing risk around insider threats is … Read more