The Role of Individual Characteristics on Insider Abuse Intentions

Insiders represent a major threat to the security of an organization’s information resources (Warkentin & Willison, 2009; Stanton et al., 2005). Previous research has explored the role of protection motivation or of deterrence in promoting compliant behavior, but these factors have not been studied together. Furthermore, other individual differences, such as the Big Five personality factors may serve as critical influences on cybersecurity compliance. In this study we use a factorial survey approach to identify key components of secure insider behavior. We obtained 201 observations from a diverse sample of employees. The results of this effort will enable us to develop psychological profiles of individual employees so that we may create personalized cybersecurity training protocols that meet the unique needs of each employee profile, appealing to the proper set of motivations for each. Findings of the present study are presented, and the long-term project goal is discussed.