Insider threat detection and testing

It’s a critical component of any offensive cybersecurity strategy. Insider threat detection and testing monitors user behavior and analyses data from various sources to flag suspicious activity and reduce the likelihood of attacks like data breaches caused by employees.

Insider threat actors come in many forms – not all of them malicious. Overall, there are three types of insider threats in cybersecurity that you should be aware of.

• Negligent insiders: employees that are not aware of the threat they are causing you. Good intentions, poor security practices. They may open a phishing email or accidentally share confidential information.
• Compromised: insiders whose credentials have been acquired by an external attacker. Stolen information is used to gain access to your system and secure data without detection.
• Malicious: actors within your organization who are consciously seeking to cause harm and steal data. They already have access to your system and they intend to abuse it.

Notice an employee acting differently? Watch out for general sentiments of dissatisfaction with their jobs, financial troubles, or a sudden interest in company data that’s outside their responsibility.

Anything unusual about your access patterns? Someone logging in outside of normal hours, large amounts of data copied into an external device or perhaps failed login attempts being registered.

Once you learn to identify the red flag in your network activity, you’ll be able to mitigate cyber security insider threats before they get out of hand. Analyze insider threat indicators and determine whether it’s a case of malicious activity or compromised credentials.

The first step towards insider threat prevention is insider threat awareness. You need to know what you’re looking out for, and which access control protocols and procedures need tightening up? Address the insider threat breaches from all angles.

Establish access controls, monitor user activity, and educate your employees on security protocols. Don’t stop there. Ask for background checks, enforce security clearances, and conduct periodic re-evaluations. If you want to take security seriously and outpace your genuine attackers, you need to be relentless.

Anyone with access to your systems or the ability to get hold of your sensitive data is a potential ​​cyber insider threat. Employees, contractors, vendors, partners, or even former employees that retain access can all pose a risk and may trigger an insider threat data breach.

The impact of insider threats is costly both to your reputation and your finances. Legal liabilities, regulator fines, and loss of business – all of these are real-life consequences that insider threat protection aims to avoid. Once sensitive information is out there in the open, it’s impossible to retrieve. Protect your bottom line and your clients by investing in insider threat detection solutions. 

When you think of insider threats in cyber security, your mind wanders to the image of a disgruntled employee data breach. Although this is a plausible element of cyber security insider threat detection, more often than not, a security data breach by an employee is completely accidental.

One wrong click of a button and your company’s most sensitive data could fall into the wrong hands. Monitor insider threat security and put a stop to careless yet expensive mistakes.

Money, revenge, ideology, or even professional gain; there are plenty of reasons that could incite a rogue employee cyber security threat. One of your members of staff may even be coerced or influenced by an external actor. Some insider threats can even be unintentional due to a lack of awareness regarding security protocols. Therefore, investing in insider threat protection services is essential. 

Insider threat actors can target a wide range of people, including customers, vendors, or even their own organization. The end goal of these actors could be to access trade secrets, financial information, intellectual property, or other sensitive assets. These actions could be severely detrimental to the livelihood of your company so cyber security insider threat detection is a must.