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Insider Threats vs. Privacy: How IT Pros Should Tackle This Dilemma
Here are strategies to safeguard sensitive data from insider threats while balancing ethical considerations.
Industry Perspectives
December 2, 2024
5 Min Read
Source: Sora Shimazaki via Pexels
By Ashwin Ramesh, Synup
Insider threats are on the rise, with the 2024 Insider Threat Report, based on the insights of 413 IT and cybersecurity professionals, revealing that 48% of organizations have seen an uptick in attacks over the past year.
A staggering 83% reported at least one incident. This underscores the importance of developing robust strategies to address these risks.
While external threats often grab headlines, it's crucial to recognize that internal dangers — frequently overlooked — can be just as harmful. These can stem from trusted employees, contractors, or compromised user accounts.
This article explores insider threat complexities and why they should matter to IT professionals. We'll also share proactive measures to help safeguard your digital security.
What Are Insider Threats?
Insider threats are cybersecurity risks originating from within your organization. They can arise from well-meaning employees who inadvertently cause issues or from those who intend to cause harm. Recognizing the distinction between intentional and unintentional threats is crucial for developing tailored security measures.
Insider threats follow a predictable lifecycle, from planning through to aftermath. Understanding this lifecycle can help you identify and manage risks effectively. Familiarizing yourself with these stages equips you to respond to insider threats swiftly and efficiently.
Indicators of Insider Threats
Detecting a malicious insider can be challenging, but there are several red flags to watch out for:
Abnormal Data Access: Keep an eye out for someone accessing files or systems that aren't part of his or her usual tasks, especially if it happens at odd hours or from weird locations.
Employee Behavior Changes: Notice any sudden changes in behavior at work — like disengagement — that could hint at underlying dissatisfaction and potential malicious intent.
Privilege Escalation: Watch for attempts to gain unauthorized access or higher permissions beyond the standard.
Unauthorized System Modifications: Be wary of any system or configuration changes made without proper approval; it could be a sign of someone trying to mask harmful activities.
Unusual Network Traffic: Large data transfers or connections to unfamiliar IPs might indicate someone is trying to sneak data out.
Types of Insider Threats
Organizations should understand the nuances among the types of threats for effective detection and prevention.
Pawns are unsuspecting employees who might be manipulated into harmful actions, usually without realizing it. Think of someone falling victim to a phishing scam and inadvertently downloading malware.
Goofs act without malicious intent. They're the ones who, either out of ignorance or a misguided sense of entitlement, bypass security protocols — for example, someone storing sensitive information in an unsecured location, thinking it's harmless.
Collaborators knowingly aid external bad actors, such as competitors or nation-states. They leverage their access to compromise their organization, whether that's by stealing trade secrets or disrupting operations.
Lone wolves operate independently and pose significant risks, especially if they have elevated privileges.
Why Do Many Organizations Underestimate Insider Threats?
While there are many reasons, here are the most common explanations for why many underestimate the prevalence and potential impact of insider threats:
Comfort With the Known: Humans naturally distrust the unknown more than the known, even though statistics prove that familiar individuals pose more significant risks, especially in cybersecurity.
Innate Trust: Confiding in employees means giving them access to sensitive data, but this blind trust makes companies overlook insider threats as a possibility.
Miscalculated Risk: Many misjudge the danger posed by insider threats, believing external threats to be more significant, though statistics indicate otherwise.
Financial Issues: In rare cases, budget constraints often lead cybersecurity efforts to focus more on external threats, sidelining the importance of safeguarding against insider risks.
Ethically Managing Insider Threats
The management of insider threat risks is complex and requires significant organizational effort. Best practices for implementing HR, process, and technology controls are summarized below:
Background checks
Vetting and background checks can lead to discrimination or data quality issues, especially concerning online searches and third-party verification under GDPR. More often than not, social media usage increases the risks of insider threats due to careless sharing of sensitive data. Conducting background checks on potential employees' social media activity can provide insights into their personality but also raises concerns about data breaches and privacy violations.
Non-disclosure agreement
Organizations may require candidates for sensitive roles to sign non-disclosure agreements upfront for safety concerns. However, an extra layer of protection can be added by interviewers by ensuring confidential information is kept secure during the hiring process.
Internal training
Regular data protection and cybersecurity training should be part of the onboarding process, with ongoing sessions tailored to various job functions for accountability. These sessions can prove extremely valuable and beneficial for employees prone to accidentally leaking sensitive information outside the organization. Since accidental insider threats are more likely to happen than malicious insider threats, regular training can reduce such threats.
Exit processes
Ensure that part of the exit process is fully revoking access to company systems, particularly for employees on long-term leave or changing roles. This ensures that any employee accounts that aren't being actively managed don't have any sensitive information associated with them that can be misused for privacy breaches and insider threats.
Usage and monitoring
Implement clear internal policies for acceptable use and monitoring of company devices, keeping local laws regarding employee privacy in mind. Updating the policies regularly and using appropriate digital tools to monitor company devices can help you reduce the chances of data breaches and insider threats while making it easier to gauge employee productivity.
Incident management processes
Under GDPR, companies must report data breaches within 72 hours of the incident. By carefully creating and implementing incident management processes, you can train employees to recognize and report such incidents promptly to ensure compliance.
Disciplinary procedures
Organizations must ensure that intentional privacy breaches are treated seriously, with clear disciplinary actions and legal measures in place. By putting disciplinary procedures in place, employees will likely take insider threats and privacy concerns more seriously.
Parting Thoughts on Controlling Insider Threats
Insider threats are a genuine concern, and treating them as such is crucial, even if you have a high level of trust in your team or don't perceive any significant risks. These threats are more common and costly than many realize, so implementing proactive defensive measures while abiding by privacy laws is a smart move to safeguard your data.
About the author:
Ashwin Ramesh is the founder of Synup, a platform designed to help businesses grow their digital presence while keeping in mind the critical balance between data privacy and internal security risks.
About the Author
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