Key Takeaways
- The Malicious Insider: An employee who is angry (fired/passed over for promotion) and decides to steal data or sabotage systems on the way out.
- The Negligent Insider: A loyal employee who is just careless. They leave their laptop in a taxi or click "Enable Macros" on a phishing email. They cause 60% of breaches.
- The Compromised Insider: An employee whose account was hacked (Credential Theft), and the attacker is now using their legitimate access to roam the network.
Firewalls stop hackers. Background checks stop criminals. But what stops a trusted System Administrator from deleting the database?
Indicators of Compromise (IoC)
Behavioral Analytics (UEBA) tools look for anomalies:
- Downloading large amounts of data to a USB stick at 3 AM.
- Accessing files irrelevant to their job role.
- Sending emails with attachments to personal Gmail addresses.
The "Data Loss Prevention" (DLP) Solution
DLP software scans every file leaving the network. If it sees "Social Security Numbers" or "Source Code" being uploaded to Dropbox, it blocks the transfer and alerts security.
Prevention: Separation of Duties
No single person should have the power to destroy the company. To launch a nuclear missile, two people must turn keys. To delete the production database, two admins should approve the command.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Are whistleblowers insider threats?
Technically, yes. Edward Snowden was an insider threat to the NSA. Whether they are "heroes" or "traitors" is a political question, but from a CISO's perspective, it is unauthorized data exfiltration.
Does monitoring destroy morale?
It can. If employees feel like "Big Brother" is watching every keystroke, trust erodes. It is a delicate balance between security and privacy.
The future of threats.
Read Quantum Computing