Protecting Your Business from Insider Threats

While many organisations assume that their biggest risks involve some hooded, faceless hacker in a remote location, the biggest cybersecurity threats often come from within. current and former employees, vendors, contractors, and partners can use their current knowledge and access to completely destroy a corporation. An effective insider threat program protects sensitive data, prevents illegal access, and lowers the chance of a data breach.

What are insider threats?

Insider threats, as the name implies, are cybersecurity risks originating from individuals within an organisation. These individuals could be employees, contractors, partners, or anybody else who has access to your sensitive information or systems and has the potential to inflict substantial harm to your firm, either accidentally or on purpose.

Does your business need to be concerned about insider threats?

Insider threats are a major concern for businesses of all sizes as they can lead to data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage. Insider-related incidents increased by 44% between 2020 and 2022, with insider threats accounting for 60% of all data breaches. In addition, Verison's 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report found that there's a human element involved in 74% of data breaches.

According to Cybersecurity Insiders' 2023 Insider Threat Report, 74% of cybersecurity experts believe their business is somewhat or severely exposed to insider attacks, with 60% reporting an insider threat in 2022.

Insider threat incidents are costly. According to Ponemon Institute's 2022 Cost of Insider Threats Global Report, negligent insiders accounted for 56% of insider threats over a 12-month period, costing an average of $484,931 per event. Malicious insiders caused 26% of insider threat incidents, costing an average of $648,062 per incident. User credential theft (compromised insiders) accounted for 18% of insider threat incidents, with an average cost of $804,997 per incident.

Why is insider threat detection challenging?

In Cybersecurity Insiders 2023 Insider Threat Report, nearly half (48%) of respondents agreed that detecting and preventing insider threats is more challenging than external threat detection and prevention.

Insider threats can be difficult to detect since employees have legitimate access to the organisation's systems and important data. Privileged users require a specific amount of trust and access to accomplish their job obligations.

Insiders might also be aware of the security protocols and locations for critical data storage. Occasionally, they are aware of or find ways around current security protocols. Implementing security rules, procedures, and technology can assist avoid privilege abuse and reduce the possibility of sensitive data compromise.

Actively monitoring user activity, implementing robust access controls and encryption, and providing employees and contractors with security awareness training are all critical techniques for recognising and managing insider threats.

Best practices for protecting against and preventing insider threats

1. Inventory and classify data resources through the environment

All companies should undertake a thorough assessment of their data resources across the IT landscape. The inventory must cover any data kept on-site as well as in public or private cloud infrastructure. Companies can then put in place the necessary cybersecurity safeguards to secure important or sensitive data.

Data resources must be classified so that they can be used effectively within the organisation. Access to sensitive information and the essential systems that process it should be limited to those who require it to accomplish their tasks, and effective identity and access management (IAM) is required to prevent unauthorised access to business data.

2. Develop an inclusive data handling policy

An organisation should adopt a data management policy for recognised and classified corporate information. The policy should specify who can access specific data resources, as well as where, when, and how they can be used. Violations of the data handling policy may indicate the presence of insider threats and should be investigated by system administrators and security professionals.

3. Provide security awareness and data handling training

This best practice is intended to limit the number of unaware insider threats and dangers. Employees should receive security awareness and data handling training to ensure they understand their responsibility in protecting company resources. This training will assist trustworthy staff by reducing data inaccuracies, whereas malicious insiders may ignore it.

4. Monitor systems for insider threat indicators

While most insider threat indicators are generated by malicious insiders, offering user training at the point of risk dramatically minimises the likelihood of these indicators being generated by unaware insiders.

Insiders deliberately subverting security and putting the organisation at risk often remain hidden for an extended time, but eventually have to perform some type of suspicious behaviour.

By monitoring the company's IT environment for any suspicious behaviour or unauthorised access, organisations can identify potential insider threats and take appropriate action. This requires implementing security measures such as intrusion detection systems, privileged access management systems, and user behavioural analytics.?

These insider threat indicators may be a sign that a malicious insider is making a move:

• Unusual login behaviour at odd hours or attempting to access restricted systems
• Multiple attempts to access restricted data or applications
• Inordinate download activity that may indicate an attempt to steal data
• Privilege escalation, or odd requests for elevated privileges that can be used to access restricted resources.

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5. Implement a data loss prevention platform

A data loss prevention software combats all forms of insider risks by automatically enforcing an organisation's data management policy. This functionally blocks deliberate and accidental attempts to mishandle enterprise resources that put the business at risk.?

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Conclusion

Insider threats are more difficult to detect than external attacks, as they go undetected by firewalls and intrusion detection systems. Malicious insiders, particularly those who are familiar with your organisation's security procedures, can readily elude discovery. An insider threat has the potential to target any size of business. As an IT service provider, RSK cybersecurity is committed to securing your data and protecting your business from any kind of cybersecurity risk.?