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Understanding insider threats and how to fight them!

Insider threats have always been a major concern for businesses and the situation is becoming more complex as technology is rapidly evolving and cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated. In fact, insider threats increased by 44% in 2022. And, due to various factors such as economic instability, organizational changes, and the growing sophistication of attacks, the number of cyber incidents caused by insiders is expected to go higher. Employees, contractors, and trusted insiders with privileged access can exploit vulnerabilities, causing severe damage to an organization’s reputation, financial stability, and intellectual property.

What Are the Signs of Insider Threats?

Insider threats can be grouped into three main categories: a careless employee, a credential thief, or a malicious insider. Organizations must always oversee their employees’ operations and their insiders for “red flags”. Recognizing these signs is crucial for organizations to identify and mitigate potential risks. While it is essential to approach each situation with care and avoid jumping to conclusions, here are some common signs that may indicate the presence of an insider threat:

Sudden and significant changes in an employee’s behavior, such as increased disgruntlement, unusual work patterns, or decreased productivity.
Transmission of sensitive data to an unprotected cloud location.
Violation of data security regulations .
Remote access during off-hours.
Unusual or excessive downloading, copying, or transferring of sensitive data without a legitimate business need.
Displaying an intense and unexplained curiosity about sensitive information, intellectual property, or strategic plans.

How to fight insider threats?

Fighting insider threats requires a proactive and multi-layered approach that combines technical measures, organizational policies and employee education. By promoting awareness, emphasizing the importance of data protection, and encouraging employees to report any suspicious activities can help organizations establish a culture of security throughout the organization. In fact, conducting regular training sessions and awareness programs to educate employees about insider threats, their consequences and the role they play to prevent them. On the other hand, organizations should monitor employee activity and manage user accounts in real-time to predict abnormal user behavior related to potential data theft, sabotage, or misuse.

Another way to minimize the risk of insider threats is enforcing a security policy that will safeguard your business against internal breaches. A successful security policy will include procedures and processes that will prevent and identify any malicious activities. It should also include details about limiting access to sensitive information and specify who can access what data, and who they can share it with.

Additionally, the implementation of advanced security tools, such as intrusion detection systems and data loss prevention solutions, can help detect suspicious behaviors and identify potential insider threats before they cause harm.

Safeguard your data against insider threats with DataPatrol solutions

DataPatrol provides organizations with powerful solutions that help organizations take their insider threat prevention plan to the next level.

The ScreenDefender solution

Using advanced image processing mechanisms, the ScreenDefender detects if an insider is capturing information shown on the screen with their personal mobile phone or camera!

The Screen Watermark solution

DataPatrol Digital Screen Watermark Solution enables organizations to better control internal data breaches by applying a Watermark to all end users’ desktop machines and servers with detailed information about the logged-in user, IP address, time, and other metadata.