Cybersecurity teams work extensively to keep external attackers out of their organization's IT environment, but insider threats present a different, equally as difficult, challenge.
Identifying insider threats is growing increasingly complex, and, as opposed to external threats, insiders always have some degree of access to systems and data.
Insider threats are caused by an employee, service provider, contractor, or privileged business user's accidental or deliberate actions that compromise an organization's data security.
Through negligence or malice, insiders can cause damage to your organization's data, systems, networks, equipment, intellectual property, personnel, and facilities.
To that extent, specific behavioral indicators enable cybersecurity teams to differentiate insider threats from regular activity.
Whether intentional or not, the signs of suspicious behavior generated by an insider can be subtle and hard to detect.
On the one hand, accidental insider threat types include unwitting and careless users who are either manipulated into performing a malicious activity or attempting to save time by cutting corners, inadvertently bypassing security policies.
On the other hand, when someone deliberately seeks to hurt or negatively impact the organization, they pose a malicious insider threat.
Whether malicious or accidental, effective insider threat detection and identification requires a proactive approach regardless of the threat type.
Cybersecurity teams must know the common insider threat indicators.
Security personnel should monitor the IT environment for the following insider threat indicators, and in most insider threat cases, only a few of these indicators will be present.
A user repeatedly attempting to log into systems for which they are not authorized may indicate a malicious insider is trying to compromise enterprise resources.
An unwarranted increase in unauthorized access attempts for systems or applications containing sensitive information may indicate an insider threat.
A malicious insider may spy on an authorized user and then try to gain access using password variations based on their observations.
An insider may try to gain access to information and systems that pose a risk to an organization by requesting escalated privileges that fall beyond the scope of their work duties.
Indications that an insider may threaten an organization go beyond just the technical aspects of their day-to-day activities.
Insider threat detection necessitates a forward-thinking strategy.
Addressing these gaps and strengthening the cybersecurity processes and procedures that protect a company's valuable data reduces the risks of insider threats.
Beyond evaluations, modern insider risk management and data loss prevention solutions leverage advanced analytics and threat intelligence to identify early indicators of potential insider threats and automatically restrict risky and malicious activity.
By enforcing the organization's data handling policy, a DLP platform keeps unauthorized users away from sensitive resources and provides reports that can be used to investigate potential insider threats before they cause damage to the company.
This Cyber News was published on www.cybersecurity-insiders.com. Publication date: Sun, 03 Dec 2023 22:43:05 +0000