“The insider threat remains one of the greatest challenges faced by the nuclear security community,” said Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty, DOE Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA Administrator. “We are working together with partners around the world to counter this potent risk.”

Ambassador Ghislain D’Hoop of Belgium’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Vienna, and Administrator Gordon-Hagerty highlighted the successes since the Symposium – including regional workshops in Argentina, Chile, Morocco, and Ukraine.

Ambassador Ghislain D’Hoop emphasized during this event that “effective measures for the detection, prevention and mitigation of insider threats should be developed and implemented through a structural and comprehensive approach.”

Information Circular 908, now endorsed by 28 countries and INTERPOL, “acknowledge(s) that insider threats are credible and that they pose a serious threat to the security of nuclear and radiological materials.”

During the side event, the Belgian and American teams discussed what they have accomplished since they co-hosted the March 2019 International Symposium on Insider Threat Mitigation. The Symposium raised awareness of the threat insiders pose to nuclear and radiological security and it fostered the sharing of best practices in threat mitigation.

Belgium’s Federal Agency for Nuclear Control also announced that its government would host the first pilot outside of the United States of the IAEA’s Advanced Training Course on Insider Threat Mitigation in 2021.