How can a SOC team identify and manage insider threats?

Here's a simple way to think about identifying & managing insider threats: 1) Malicious Insider: Employee intentionally harms the organization, e.g., stealing intellectual property, deleting crucial data. Heightened surveillance is required for employees with high privileged access, employees exiting the company etc. 2) Negligent Insider: Employee compromises security due to willful negligence, e.g., accessing customer PII. Set right standards/policies at a company level. Stricter actions should be taken on repeat offenders. 3) Compromised Insider: Employee account is compromised by attackers and used against the company. Employee is unaware of the compromise. Ex: Phishing, malware Protective & detective controls can help.

In my opinion, incorporating User Behavior Analytics, Role-Based Access Control, Continuous Monitoring, Data Loss Prevention Systems, and Insider Threat Training and Awareness are priority measures to enhance enterprise security against insider threats

Creating an environment where employees feel safe and supported can reduce the risk of insider threats. A key strategy is implementing advanced User Behavior Analytics, DLP and Dark web-based monitoring- focusing on User activities, patterns, and behaviors, SOCs can detect anomalies that might indicate malicious or negligent actions. Implementing a policy of least privilege and regularly reviewing access rights, a well-defined incident response plan that includes scenarios involving insider threats. In conclusion, managing insider threats requires a balanced approach that combines technology, processes, and people.

Here are some tips that can help identity insider threat scenarios: 1.Establishing proper UEBA(User Entity Based Analytics) rules to identity potential anamolous activities like abnormal download, bulk upload, anamolous in login patterns etc. 2.Setup some lured honeypots/honeynets. Generally this is for attracting external threats but internal employees accessing honeypots and honeynets is again indication of potential bad intention of employees looking for confidential information. 3.Establish peer analytics monitoring which can arrange employees activities in order of anamolous activities. Say in a team of 10, peer analytics first learn over time of general activities of these 10 employees and then monitor for any drift from the baseline.

Insider threats are a risk that comes from individuals within your organization who have authorized access; this includes employees, former employees, contractors, or business associates who have access to inside information. The insider threat can produce malicious, complacent, or unintentional acts that negatively affect the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of the organization, its data, personnel, or facilities. Examples of insider threats include: corruption, espionage, degradation of resources, sabotage, terrorism and unauthorized information disclosure. Insider threats events can also be a starting point for cyber criminals to launch malware or ransomware attacks.

SOC teams monitor user behavior using tools like UEBA, promptly identifying anomalies. Access controls, DLP, and EDR mitigate risks, ensuring quick responses to suspicious activities. Incident response plans, user education, and thorough auditing strengthen defenses. Behavioral analysis, SIEM tools, and insider threat intelligence enhance proactive detection and mitigation.

As mentioned UEBA , SIEM , DLP's are effective way to address this issue however only detecting such an activity is not enough. we do need some deterrent controls some best practices and principles to be followed in terms of user roles and responsibilities right from the Job description to Job termination.

Technical controls & processes are helpful in providing visibility into actions and behaviors associated with insider threat but detection of insider threats is enhanced with human context. Having good relationships with managers, HR, and Compliance teams can provide technical investigators with human backstory that can create context around alerts, log review, and other digital artifacts. Documenting the story discovered via digital evidence and the events relayed by the humans involved can provide a more accurate picture of events. This sort of investigative analysis can help escalate or de-escalate the urgency of an investigation and the amount of effort needed to address the issue.

UEBA when complemented with Supervised ML, Complete Infra Coverage and Reduced Noise = Insider Threat Mastery! ?? Discover the game-changing potential of UEBA, armed with supervised machine learning. It goes beyond expectations, spotlighting insider threats unlike SIEM and SOAR. ??? #UEBA #InsiderThreats #CyberSecurity #MachineLearning #NextGenSecurity.

UEBA are definitely powerful tools to monitor and analyze user behavior. These tools can identify unusual activity that deviates from normal patterns, such as accessing sensitive data at odd hours, excessive downloading, or transferring files to external sources. In addition, monitoring network traffic is also very important, for unusual data flows, such as large data uploads/downloads, especially to unauthorized or external destinations.

Cyber Kill Chain: Embrace the Cyber Kill Chain methodology. It delineates the stages of a cyberattack, enabling the SOC team to comprehend the attacker's motives, methods, and objectives. Diamond Model: Leverage the Diamond Model for a nuanced perspective on cyber incidents. This model dissects incidents into four key elements, aiding in the identification of relationships and attributes. MITRE ATT&CK Framework: Harness the power of the MITRE ATT&CK framework. This comprehensive knowledge base catalogs tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) employed by diverse threat actors. The framework facilitates mapping and comparison of observed behaviors and indicators.

User behaviour analytic systems do exactly this. Normal behaviour of users can be learned and if there is something off we would know. Beside do regular red teaming maneuver so that employees know that you care about security and make sure they know the risk both company wise and legally.

It's important to consider the context of observed behaviors. For example, accessing sensitive data late at night might be normal for some roles or during certain business periods, but suspicious in others. Contextual understanding helps in distinguishing between benign activities and potential threats. Assigning risk scores to different activities based on their potential impact and the likelihood of being malicious, if also beneficial. This helps in prioritizing the threats that need immediate attention.

Use behavioral analytics. Implement strict access controls. Monitor user activity logs. Conduct employee training. Deploy Data Loss Prevention tools. Proactively hunt for threats. Establish clear policies. Regularly audit user accounts. Develop an incident response plan. Conduct background checks. By combining these strategies, a SOC team can proactively identify, mitigate, and manage insider threats, thereby safeguarding the organization's sensitive data and systems

Tools like EUBA, IRM, SIEM can certainly provide good amount visibility over network and user level activities. In order to identify insider threats from different AI tools used in enterprise, there is need to come up with better understanding of those AI workflows and their access to critical assets.

Use behavioral analytics. Implement strict access controls. Monitor user activity logs. Conduct employee training. Deploy Data Loss Prevention tools. Proactively hunt for threats. Establish clear policies. Regularly audit user accounts. Develop an incident response plan. Conduct background checks. By combining these strategies, a SOC team can proactively identify, mitigate, and manage insider threats, thereby safeguarding the organization's sensitive data and systems

Insider threats has to be dealt with proactive approach rather than reactive. Use of Analytics tools are capable of providing indicators of potential insider threats in advance . It is recommended to deal with those by taking timely preventive measures in terms of restrictions and intimations . Keeping users aware of these threats and events is also very important response action in order to reduce future threats.

1. Make sure people only have access to what they need for their job (least privilege and segregation of duties principles). 2.Encourage a culture where it's okay to speak up if something looks off. 3. Conduct regular security awareness training and followups.

User access reviews should be done on a regular basis, especially on more critical applications and tools in the environment. It's easy to lose track of levels or types of access especially when an employee is promoted or shifts roles. UEBA is helpful as it may show anomalous behavior of a user and DLP for data protection. Employees who put in their two weeks notice could also be tagged in these systems for better awareness of possible data exfiltration. These tools and procedures would benefit from table top exercises for testing and validating as well.

Spread awareness and stay alert. Keep in touch with business to get sense of potential treats to business in present scenario and define indicators accordingly.

Insider threat to an organisation is in different forms - 1. Frustrated/Malicious employee - set of tools, process and technologies required to detect and prevent abnormal intentional user behaviour. Eg: UEBA, DLP, Security Analytics. 2. Ignorant / victim employee - Many organisations do have employees who are not so tech savvy to differentiate malicious phishing emails and phishing URLs. This requires a deliberate user awareness programme and continuous assessment of employees capability to detect cyber threats. Eg: email phishing simulations. 3. Compromised end users - Many cases the employees may not be knowing their system is compromised. There are communication going to C&C sites. This requires strong Threat Intelligence.

The implementation of policies and procedures that set clear guidance on what is expected and how this should be performed, provides clear guidance for all. In the first instance, this prevents people mistakenly going off the beaten track and creating unintentional security weaknesses. But maybe most importantly, it provides clear and obvious lines between what is acceptable and what is not. This allowing attacks, such as insider attacks, to be spotted and flagged promptly.

- User Behavior Monitoring: - Establish baseline behaviors - Track and analyze user activities - Access Controls: - Restrict access based on roles - Regularly review permissions - Anomaly Detection: - Use AI for pattern analysis - Set up alerts for suspicious activities - Data Loss Prevention (DLP): - Monitor and prevent unauthorized data transfers - Classify and control sensitive data - Incident Response Plan: - Develop a comprehensive plan - Conduct regular drills - Employee Training: - Educate on security policies - Promote security awareness - Continuous Monitoring: - Use real-time tools for tracking - Regularly review logs and audit trails

Typically and insider threat service is part of a data protection program vs a SOC. This service can be part of a SOC, but it needs supporting processes (data classification, data inventory, and detailed business workflows) as well as technologies such as DLP, CASB, Rights Management, etc. Whenever an investigation is performed by the SOC, insider should always be a possibility, but there are many other insider scenarios that won't flag a typical cyber security incident detected by a SOC.

At the end make sure security awareness training is part of your onboarding process. Employees should be kept updated on the risks.

Insider Threat gets a bad rap that we’re focusing on some disgruntled employee that is about to take a hatchet to the server room. (End scene from the movie Free Guy!? ?????) ?? Just focus on threat vectors - externally and internally. A bad actor pops your employees garbage pets-name password, the actor now impersonates that employee, so yes the attack looks like an insider, this is a very likely event. Scope your program to appropriately protect, detect and respond to threats internally and externally.

UEBA when complemented with supervised machine learning, complete Infra Coverage, Reduced Noise = Insider Threat Mastery! Discover the game-changing potential of UEBA, armed with supervised machine learning.