Insider threats are divided between witting and unwitting. We’ll focus on the latter for this article, because a lot of people don’t realize they are at fault.
Let’s define the insider threats
For the purpose of this article, I will use down-to-Earth language for the sake of clarity. An insider threat is a person or entity who has authorized placement and access, but misuses said placement and access in a way that betrays the trust of the entity or person who granted them said placement and access. For example, a government employee who divulges classified information to an adversarial nation.
They fall into one of the two broad categories.
- Witting Insider Threat: Somebody who is well aware that what they are doing is contrary to the trust they been bestowed based on their placement and access. That is of course very dangerous.
- Unwitting Insider Threat: Somebody who is too stupid to realize they are doing the same thing the witting insider threat is doing – but they just have not realized it for some reason. This is even more dangerous – because we all can fall into this category if we are not careful.
As I said at the top of this article, I will be focusing on the latter because even the self-proclaimed “good guys” could become unwitting insider threats. And depending on how deep they fall, they could later be coerced to become witting insider threats – by means of blackmail, greed, coercion, bribery, racketeering, etc. This is why sometimes you see some people flip flop from a spirited critic of a shady person into becoming their lapdog. I’ll be talking about witting insider threats in a separate article.
Current Example in the USA
Foreign Misinformation Influence
Here is a relevant example for what I mean. In case you missed it, the United States District Court Southern District of New York set forth an indictment against two Russian nationals. The premise of the case is that they were hiring prominent Right-Wing personalities to spread a Russian Misinformation Campaign by recruiting some Right-Wing Influencers in the USA, Canada, and the European Union.
In short, RT – formerly known as Russia Today, which is a state-sponsored media giant for Russia; used shell companies to pay millions of dollars to several right-wing influencers to use their platforms to deliver Russian-regime-talking points to affect public perception on with said influencers’ spanning several social media accounts.
Read the full indictment here – it's 32 pages long, and very well written.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1366266/dl
To be honest, this is not surprising to me at all. If you’ve been reading my articles for a while (or if you decide to read them from now on), you’ll see that I’ve been talking about these indicators practically since I’ve started writing articles on Half Life Crisis. We (the USA) have been bombarded with foreign-led adversarial regimes misinformation campaigns for a very long time. Some of those are hidden in plain sight, others are a lot more on the nose. Both serve a purpose to the larger scope and their ultimate intent. What’s that? To divide the USA, because if we fight each other (westerners vs westerners), we are easier targets to defeat.
As for any swindle, there are a few “in the know” – and a bunch of useful fools. The unwitting insider threat is generally the latter – and many times they are totally unaware of that fact. Sometimes they die without realizing it (but might have been convinced they were martyrs until their last breath on behest of their handlers), hence it is highly exploitable. That said, the useful fools might very well be the ones stuck paying the piper after realizing their handlers were using them like last week’s underwear. Let’s delve into this, shall we?
TRIGGER WARNING: I’m probably going to hurt your feelings with this next portion. So, if you have thin skin (even if you blame “other people” for being so called snowflakes) – this article might hit you close to home. You’ll be all right, for a moment just pretend it is about somebody else. Healing starts with assessing the wound. Much like when you rub alcohol on a wound to prevent infection, and it stings like a b** at that time, but it is afterwards ok… similar to that. If you’re too thin-skinned to read this, then hope you enjoy the rest of your day… just know that if there is an exploitable blind spot in your life, it will come to bite you in the caboose later – likely when you’re at your most vulnerable.
This could be you
An unwitting insider threat is often too dumb to realize they are the ones who are FUBAR (F**ed up beyond all recognition). And yes, those are usually the ones who THINK they are the ones who have the “moral” high ground. And I say “moral” in quotations because this can be very fluid based on several factors (because they are multipliers).
Spoiler alert, if you fall under this category, those who are swindling you, have already realized how naïve you are. They will know exactly how to manipulate you. If you have a bias that you cannot control, they will find it, and they will not only play you like a fiddle, but a full philharmonic orchestra. This trap will seem very subtle at first, and you won’t realize you’re trapped – and even enjoy your confinement for a while. But make no mistake, you’ve already given up your freedom, even if “freedom” is the “word” they used to snare you to their ranks in the first place.
How does that work? It always starts with a bias. Let me say that again, it always starts with a bias. We all have them; these are predisposed responses to be for or against something or someone based on our environmental perceptions… and by environment I’m not just talking about weather or climate (which are not synonymous by the way). But when we have any bias for or against something, then it is not a bridge too far to convince us of something that “makes sense” under a controlled scope– even if it is circumstantial at best.
For example, if you have a religious bias (you pick the religion, there are more than 4,000 religions around the world). And like it or not, it is very easy to mobilize people in favor of a religion – and for some in favor of secularism. Yes, even non-religious people could fall into a bias. For example, calling all theists gullible for believing whatever it is that they believe upon. Or for theist to call all atheists “immoral” because they don’t happen to believe in a deity.
So, for example – let’s say that if a congregation is already disparaging about a particular group of people (for whatever reason they are convinced it is ok to do so) – because that’s what their “sacred scriptures” tell them it is the moral thing to do… then it is not a bridge too far for them to eventually dehumanize or even eliminate that group they have been indoctrinated to disparage. A clear example for that is the Holocaust during World War II.
And yes, like it or not, one of the catalysts that led to the Holocaust was a very distorted view of Christianity. It took a while for it to get as far as it did, but every crime has an origin somewhere. And no, I’m not saying that all Christians are unilaterally responsible for the Holocaust. Christianity alone has more than 45,000 denominations, so chances are that YOUR version (hopefully) is not the extreme interpretation the Nazis followed – but that does not mean they don’t exist to this day… because they do, and they are pushing their dehumanizing interpretation around the world.
In some places it might seem very covert, but in other places it is very much on the nose. And I’ll leave it at that, because we can delve into that topic alone for hours (or days, or even weeks) – the point is that if you have a religious bias (no matter what religion), whomever seeks to exploit you will use this devotion to fit their own agenda. You don’t have to like it, but that is exactly what has been going on from the beginning of time. People who think they are serving a higher power are more likely to feel anointed to do whatever it is that the emissary for their deity demands of them.
But as I said, secularism on its own does not mean that it is better than theism. But it can have an advantage. For example, if a person is not convinced that they will go to hell for living their lives secularly, they are not likely to be persuaded by somebody who threatens them with hell in order to gain their loyalty and task them with whatever is it that they tasked their congregations who indeed believe in hell.
And I use the example of religion because I know it will make some people start shifting on their seats – especially if it starts hitting home. But notice that I did not say “which” religion is good or bad – I did not even disclose which denomination the Nazi party acolytes were falling for. By the way, that denomination exists very much today. Look it up.
An unwitting insider threat is a useful fool, always. The easiest way to exploit a person is by identifying their biases and pushing those buttons. Cognitive dissidence will follow, especially when a certain behavior is normalized in their immediate environment. And this could be good or bad behavior.
Let’s do a quick thought experiment
For example, let’s say that everybody is happy to egg on the grumpy guy in the office, because his reactions are hilarious. Is that good or bad behavior? Let’s say that this dude has been in the same office for over a decade and this entire time everybody pokes fun at him… even the new staff, because he is such a good sport, even though he is always grumpy, and his behavior seems hilarious.
- How would you feel if you were the aforementioned grumpy guy?
- What would be your reaction if you’re new into this office and witness it firsthand, and somehow are enticed to follow suit with this “tradition?”
- What would be your reaction if you were planning on not following suit, and when you voice that you won’t partake in making fun of this guy, suddenly everybody else now starts treating you like the aforementioned grumpy guy? You’re new in the office, and low on the hierarchy chain.
- What would be your reaction if you learn that the highest-ranking person is the one who started this tradition of egging on this grumpy guy.
- What would be your reaction when you learn that grumpy guy was not always grumpy, but that work center’s culture changed around him?
You don’t need to answer those to me. My intent is to show you how the environment could affect your perception of what is correct or not. When it comes to exploiting unwitting insider threats it tends to have a process behind it. Each person is unique. Some people have a proclivity for falling into a swindle quite easily… others might take some effort. But the fact is that we are all human, and we all have a breaking point.
And it is the actual self-proclaimed stronger, alpha, skeptical, or whatever epithet you want to use to self-describe as invulnerable – that can indeed be very much at risk for becoming useful fools. Let’s start with the alphas… many of those guys are actually quite insecure, despite the façade. Yes, I know… very triggering. It is very easy to manipulate an alpha if you’ve found out how they see the world under their scope.
For example, some tend to be very macho, but if you butter them a bit and give some sort of shallow compliment that concurs with their own self-grandiosity, you’ll have them eating out of your hand. In fact, they might be convinced that you’ve subordinated to them, and as long as they feel they are in control – however erroneous their assertion, they will lower their guard when you’re inside their circle. Sometimes because they think you’re too weak, and they are convinced they are indeed in charge (they are not). By the way, that is why you’ve seen a high uptick on toxic masculinity. I’ve written extensively about it too, because these topics are very much related.
In case it was not obvious yet, the unwitting insider threats sometimes are those who think they are in full control of the situation, and think they are not at risk of being vulnerable. A typical unwitting insider threat will tend to be cynical, and act as though they are the sharpest tool in the drawer. They are not, the best way to manipulate a fool is to convince them they are smarter than they really are. And the fact is that we are all dumb about something. NOBODY knows EVERYTHING, and that is perfectly fine.
That is why it is important to have a well-rounded, and diverse team. Because collective knowledge helps us identify any weak points or blind spots that we might be unaware of existed. That is not convenient for those who want to manipulate you. Those who want to manipulate you will act as they are the only source of information, and that if you listen to anybody else then you’re automatically out of the “in crowd.” Even if they don’t say it overtly.
That is why I have you the example of the grumpy guy a few paragraphs ago. The reality is that when it comes to propagandists sowing the seeds for unwitting insider threats – their tactics will tend to be a lot more subtle – at least at the start. My example was more on the nose to make it obvious. However, propagandists will automatically lower the bar to gaslight people if they realize that the crowd they are pandering to is already gullible enough.
If you already forgot absolutely everting that I’ve said today, just remember this. An unwitting insider threat is somebody who is too dumb to realize he or she is acting against their own best interests, while unintentionally sabotaging and betraying the trust of those who afford them their placement and access. Have you met any unwitting insider threats? Is that person you? If it is you, don’t worry – just rectify it. Traps are designed to snare you with ease, and if you did find out you were snared, your choices are to either get out or give up. HLC