Insider Threats: The Risk of Endpoint Access by Departing Employees

Professor
West Virginia University

Mark J. Nigrini is an associate professor of accounting at West Virginia University. His research passion for many years has been a phenomenon known as Benford’s Law which is related to the patterns of the digits in tabulated data. The smaller digits (1s, 2s, and 3s) are expected to occur more often in scientific and financial data and Benford’s Law has shown itself to be valuable to fraud examiners in their quest to uncover fraud in corporate data. His current research addresses insider threats, and more specifically the cybersecurity risks posed by former employees. 

Nigrini is the author of Forensic Analytics (Wiley, 2020) which describes analytic tests used to detect fraud, errors, estimates, and biases in financial data, and Benford's Law (Wiley, 2012). In 2014 he published an article in the Journal of Accountancy that was co-authored with Nathan Mueller, a fraudster. That article won the Lawler award for the best article in the Journal of Accountancy in 2014. Included in his array of academic publications is the lead article in the new premier forensic accounting journal, the Journal of Forensic Accounting Research. His recent publications include the lead article in the Nov/Dec 2020 issue of Fraud Magazine. His work has been featured in, amongst others, The Financial Times, New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. His radio interviews have included the BBC in London, and NPR in the United States. His television interviews have included an interview on a fraud saga for the Evil Twins series for the Investigation Discovery Channel. He is a regular presenter at the ACFE’s Global Conferences and at events overseas such as Brazil’s Interforensics 2023. 

Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity
West Virginia University

Christopher A. Ramezan is an assistant professor of cybersecurity and the coordinator of the Master of Science in Business Cybersecurity Management program at West Virginia University.  He has taught numerous courses in networking and cybersecurity at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive education levels.  Currently he teaches courses on Data Communications and Networks, Operational Technology and Industrial Control System Security, Enterprise Security Architecture, and Cybersecurity Analytics.  His research interests include security architecture, federated learning approaches for cyber event detection in industrial control systems, cybersecurity workforce development and industry best practices, as well as applying machine learning and deep learning methods on multispectral and hyperspectral satellite imagery to solve remote sensing and geospatial problem sets. Ramezan’s research has been published in a variety of outlets including the Journal of Cybersecurity, Education, Research, and Practice, Journal of Information Systems Education, Remote Sensing, and the Journal of Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, among others. 

Ramezan also serves as the academic lead for the U.S. National Team in the NATO Locked Shields cybersecurity exercise with the United States Cyber Command, Defense Information Systems Agency, and the West Virginia Army National Guard. Ramezan was also awarded the both the Dean’s Distinction in Teaching and Dean’s Distinction in Service awards in 2023, as well as the WV Educator of the Year (2023-2024) by the West Virginia American Legion.  Prior to joining academia, Ramezan worked in the cybersecurity field for nearly ten years in a variety of cybersecurity and IT roles, where he dealt a spectrum of cybersecurity issues, from developing organizational cybersecurity governance and strategy to identity and access management.  He also possesses over 20 industry cybersecurity certifications including the CISSP, CISM, CASP, and CDPSE.