What is an Insider Threat?

Although we all hope that we can trust each of our employees and that it will never happen to us, the truth is that malicious insiders are a relevant risk in today’s corporate world. In fact, insider threats are a much greater danger than external adversaries who have much trouble breaking through Firewalls on their own, as the former employees perfectly normal tactics for unorthodox malicious aims.

Insider Threat Definition

An insider threat entails a risk of harm, abuse, or disruption exist within an organization, originating from people close to the organization or working within it. These individuals include employees with varying degrees of authorization, contractors, or partners of the company who are in possession of inside information regarding the way the company implements its security, information storage, and computer system.

Insider threat examples include an employee who uses a company’s funds for false purchases with falsified documents, access to restricted documents by unauthorized personnel, and data vulnerabilities in the event of security upgrades enabling the data to be leaked to third party organizations and individuals.

STAY ALERTED ABOUT ABNORMAL EVENTS

Insider Threat Awareness

It is important in the prevention of harm being done by insiders within the company, that they are explained what the program is that’s going to be used. Insider threat programs are designed to detect abnormal activity. Sometimes strange behaviors are innocent and coincidental while at other times they are malicious and require an immediate response. Its inside threat detection ability and discerning between such cases is what determines the level of insider threat security a program provides.

A variety of methods are employed in order to detect such insider threats. Employees are most closely watched who have a reason to be unhappy with the company, such as an employee who is unhappy with the management, feels unfairly treated, or plans to leave the company soon. Early insider threat indicators include behavior such as unusual overseas travel and seeing companies that the organization does not do business with, staying unusually long hours, or blogging on the job. Insider threat statistics help provide a perspective of the situation to gain the firmest control on insider threat security as possible. For instance, two out of three insider incidents happen due to employee or contractor negligence, on average it takes 72 hours to get a handle on insider threats.

DETECT INSIDER THREATS ONLINE

Insider Threats in Cyber Security

Cyber attacks come from all kinds of possible directions, but to provide a cyber insider threat definition, imagine anyone close to the company who knows anything not publicly available that could be exploited using an organization’s computers and information technology. The cyber insider threat program is concentrated on exploring new approaches for improving the speed and accuracy of insider threat detection. This kind of solutions will assist companies in identifying clear indications and network practices that warrant the greatest amount of attention from organizations.