Megan, a disgruntled employee, committing data theft using steganography, represents which type of attack?

The situation described involves Megan, a disgruntled employee, who is using steganography to commit data theft. This clearly falls under the category of an insider attack. Insider attacks refer to security breaches that are carried out by individuals from within the organization, such as employees or contractors, who exploit their access and knowledge of the organization's systems and data.

In this scenario, Megan's actions directly indicate that she has inside knowledge of how to utilize steganography—a technique for concealing data within other files—to exfiltrate sensitive information discreetly. This use of her insider status to execute a malicious act emphasizes that insider attacks often involve trusted individuals who have the ability to bypass traditional security measures because of their position within the organization.

Understanding the nature of insider threats is crucial for incident handlers, as these attacks can be particularly damaging and difficult to detect. Effective countermeasures often include a robust monitoring system, user behavior analytics, and controls over data access to mitigate such risks.

While SQL injection and DoS attacks are both forms of external threats that exploit system vulnerabilities, they do not involve insider knowledge or access. The term "employee attack" is too broad and lacks the specificity and acceptance within the cybersecurity community that the term "insider attack" provides