The goal of this blog is to help you understand what insider threats are and explain the severity of the risks, costs, and consequences these threats can inflict on your business. You will also get guidance on how to identify common indicators and warning signs as well as the security controls and strategies you need to prevent or mitigate the risks and impacts of insider incidents.
What Is an Insider Threat?
An insider threat is a security breach risk situation posed by people from within an organization. An insider can be a current or former employee, or a third party such as a business partner or contractor, who has authorized access to sensitive information and can divulge, modify or delete data records.
Who Are Potential Insiders?
Anyone who has authorized or privileged access or insider knowledge about a company's infrastructure, operations, cybersecurity practices or data, is a potential insider threat.
Over 60 percent of insider incidents are caused by negligent employees or contractors, 23 percent by criminal/malicious insiders, and 14 percent as a result of credential theft.
Types of Insider Threats
Malicious Insider:
The perpetrator could be a disgruntled employee or anyone with malicious intent who exploits their position and privilege to disclose sensitive information for personal or financial benefits or to deliberately sabotage the company.
Negligent Insider:
A regular employee or an unintentional participant whose carelessness leads to a security incident. Many organizations fail to recognize this threat until it's too late.
Collusive Insider:
This type of insider has links with external bad actors whose motive is to compromise sensitive data or steal trade secrets or intellectual property by gaining access into the organization.
Third-Party Insider:
This type of insider could be a business associate, contractor, or vendor who has some level of access to an organization's network and information. They may not be a direct threat but have access to unsecure systems or devices that could easily be exploited by cybercriminals.
Why Your Organization Needs to Take Insider Threats Seriously
Since insider threats originate from within an organization, they are hard to detect and defend against, making them very dangerous. Unlike external actors who need access to penetrate an organization, an insider has legitimate access to a company's network and systems. An insider with bad intent can exploit these authorizations and easily bypass security measures to expose confidential information and compromise an organization.
Primary Asset Targets for Insiders
An insider can divulge sensitive data either deliberately or accidentally, which can be damaging and costly for
an organization if it falls into the wrong hands. Some of the primary asset targets for insiders include:
- Critical operational or programming data for business
- Private customer or employee data
- IP or trade secrets
- Financial data
Most Common Consequences and Costs of an Insider Attack
Loss of Critical Business and Customer Data:
An insider event can put critical business and customer data at risk, which can lead to lost confidence, negative reviews or credential theft
Disclosure of Trade Secrets:
Losing intellectual property, such as trade secrets, blueprints or designs, can lead to a competitive disadvantage. A business rival can leverage the stolen information to get ahead of the competition.
Financial Costs and Losses:
Insider security incidents can result in significant revenue loss.
Reputation and Brand Damage:
Diminished reputation is a long-term consequence of an insider attack. One successful insider incident can damage even the best of brands and reputations.
Loss of Customer Trust and Business:
This is perhaps the worst consequence of an insider attack. Although organizations can physically or operationally recover from an insider attack, regaining the trust of concerned customers and partners can be difficult.
Regulatory Compliance Violations and Fines:
An insider threat leading to disclosure of personal information can have serious consequences, including government fines, legal fees, lawsuits, and in some cases, even imprisonment.
Loss in Market Value:
An insider threat can have a direct impact on market value.
Preventative Defensive Strategies
1. Regular Risk Assessments: Organizations must identify and evaluate the potential dangers of a security incident, determine its critical assets, and implement appropriate risk management measures to protect those assets.
2. Require Identity Authentication: Implementing two-factor (2FA) or multifactor authentication (MFA) will fortify security controls by verifying user identity via multiple unique factors before granting access to systems or sensitive data records.
3. Access and Permission Management: Granting only the bare minimum user permissions or systems and data access required to perform a job reduces the risks of unauthorized access, especially those that can result from exposed or stolen privilege credentials.
4. Security Awareness and Insider Threat Training: Organizations should periodically educate employees on data security, security policies and procedures, and common security threats.
5. . Establish 'Baseline Activities or Behaviors: Establish this within your organization to take advantage of automation and machine learning.
6. Ongoing/Continuous Monitoring: Monitoring employee online activity, as well as any suspicious behavior, can help detect threats and prevent security incidents from occurring.
7. Data Backup and Recovery Solutions: Organizations should implement efficient backup and recovery solutions to avoid costly downtime and severe consequences of insider threats.
