Managing Director and Co-Owner of Help2Protect SRL, former project manager of the EU-funded AITRAP Project.
“My journey with Insider Threat is both practical and theoretical, at the crossroads of my 30 years of experience in aviation, and in leading the EU-funded project AITRAP. In my aviation career, the concepts of safety and security have become part of my DNA. And as the project manager of AITRAP, I read all the reference material about the subject, and collected real cases to learn from. This material is the foundation of our e-learning platform. Furthermore, in my aviation security career I have been involved in the handling of several Insider Threat cases, both with criminal and terrorism intent.
The AITRAP program was designed to last until the end of 2021, and then switched off. With my AITRAP project colleague, Catherine Piana, we could not let it go, as we were convinced of the quality and the relevance of what we had designed – and this was confirmed by very positive feedback from professionals around the globe in a wide variety of industries. This led us to create our own company, Help2Protect SRL, in order to continue the journey to help public and private operators detect and prevent Insider Threats.
While it was initially created with the transportation ecosystem in mind, we expanded it to include critical infrastructure and public spaces. In fact, you could use this learning program for any type of environment or organisation.
The Insider Threat issue is becoming more crucial than ever and needs to embrace the physical and cyber aspects of organisations. Reports about cybersecurity highlight the fact that the most frequent source of attacks involve Insiders. These aspects are duly considered in the updated learning programs.
We will cover more areas in the months to come, and are open to your suggestions.”
Managing Director and Co-Owner of Help2Protect SRL, former coordinator of the EU-funded AITRAP Project, on behalf of CoESS.
“Insider Threat Prevention connects the dots between security, leadership, and human psychology – my 3 main areas of interest, research and passion. One of the best prevention measures, incidentally, is having good management practices in place. This is something I very much believe in, having seen as a Leadership Trainer, the damages that bad and toxic management lead to in human and financial resources. And now, it is clearly demonstrated that bad management can also lead to accidental, negligent and malicious Insider actions. With Covid, this has even been amplified, as it becomes even more difficult to create and maintain bonds, let alone a team spirit, with people who work from home.
Back in 2017, when I embarked on the EU-funded project AITRAP, which led to the creation of the initial Help2Protect platform, I became aware of the magnitude of the Insider Threat reality. It’s a tricky subject, because as long as you don’t measure it or are a victim of it, you can ignore your vulnerability and be in denial… until it hits you. What’s more, there are hardly any figures about Insider Threat, apart from the US ones, which also says something about the maturity of the subject in other parts of the world.
Insider Threat policies are now a legal requirement in EU aviation security legislation, but also a necessity from a due diligence perspective. Having been a contributor of the Help2Protect e-learning platform, I could not imagine that it would be closed because it was no longer funded. Hugo Lücke, the Project Manager, felt the same. So here we are, with an updated platform, projects for more modules related to Security and Leadership, under the flag of our joint venture Help2Protect SRL.
I hope you find this of use. Feel free to give us your feedback on our current modules and on what you’d like us to work on in the future.”