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Although there are many external security threats and attacks that cause security breaches and lead to security breaches such as network theft, no enterprise is protected from internal risks (also known as internal threats or insider threats).
Last year, about 70% of companies were say to be victims of frequent internal attacks, and 60% were say to have suffer at least one internal attack. The threat of foreigners remains the organization’s number one issue, but 58 percent of medical violations are the responsibility of insiders.
Because insiders, such as salespeople, employees, stakeholders, and partners, are already part of an organization’s trust network, they can use their location to launch an internal attack and do great damage to the organization.
What are internal threats?
Internal threats are a form of threat to an organization’s security that arises from individuals or entities within the organization.
These interiors can be stakeholders, contractors, colleagues, former employees, or employees with sensitive information related to computer systems, data, or security.
For example, if an employee is dissatisfied, or if the employee is performing more tasks than usual, this is a sign of fraud.
However, threats from within are not always intentional. In many cases, security breaches and staff negligence can lead to internal attacks. For example, you may want to share your password with other employees, you may not be able to lock your workstation properly, or you may not be able to use a weak password.
Whether the attack is intentional or not, internal attacks can pose a threat to companies and expose them to malicious insider threats and security breaches.
The threat of cybersecurity insider threats.
According to the study, the average cost of an internal attack is about $ 513,000.
These attacks not only have an economic impact on the organization but also pose other serious threats. Nearly 90 percent of organizations seem vulnerable to internal attacks. There are three main risk factors for insider-related attacks:
- IT complexity (35%)
- Arrival station (36%)
- Be too big (37%)
Companies need to understand that security is not just the job of the security team.
Instead, everyone in the organization is responsible for maintaining safety and compliance standards at all levels.
What is the risk of internal threats?
Harmful behaviors can be difficult to detect: Organizations often trust their employees. It can be difficult to determine if a person is a threat from within. When employees work with confidential information, it can be difficult to determine whether they are simply working or giving way to something malicious.
Sensitive data may be exposed or corrupt: The most common effect of insider attacks is the spread of classified or confidential business information. For example, insiders can steal personal information such as name, email address, date of birth, and login, which can lead to malicious activities such as fraudulent banking and workplace theft. ‘Personal information.
Top Cybersecurity Approaches to Protect Against Insider Threats
The best cybersecurity techniques to help protect your data and organization from insider attacks:
Institute Better Oversight of Contractor Access
In many cases, the arrival of a supplier as a third-party subcontractor can cause serious damage to the organization.
Often, privileged access is given to commercial information that may include personal information about a customer, client, or employee.
Also, companies tend to ignore external contractors such as vendors and workers; This can allow malicious individuals to enter as a contractor and perform tasks that are detrimental to the business. Organization.
What can you do to prevent such attacks?
To counter these insider threats, contractors and other external vendors should follow safety policies and access restriction guidelines while operating.
Remember to cancel access automatically when the task is complete to protect your data from insider threats. To do this, set a time limit for automatically closing the limited time so that user access is automatically canceled at the end of the project or task.
Also, make sure that these contractors have the same responsibility as permanent employees for the safety of your organization.
Senior managers, such as managers, should ensure that benefits and permits are granted only to contractors who are required to perform the task. Also, make sure that access to the things you need to do your job is strictly limited.
Implement Security Awareness Training
What else can I do to avoid common threats?
Regular safety awareness training sessions for staff and contractors. Instruct them to pay special attention to suspicious activities that could pose internal or insider threats, such as users having too much access or requesting information without feeling the need for it.
Each user should have a better understanding of safety precautions and adhere to established safety standards.
For example, you need to know how to distinguish between legitimate email and phishing and be aware of potential threats.
Organizations should consider organizing short and frequent training sessions to inform users about recent security threats, government security commitments, and updated security protocols.
Network monitoring to protected from insider threats
You can use the network monitor to monitor user activity and determine if it deviates from the criteria used.
For example, if you find that your account information is being used to log in to an account or system that you don’t normally sign in to or that isn’t required for your business, you can do the following: You’ll be alerted.
People often work for a certain amount of time or hours of work, so if they experience an unusual amount of activity or a lot of interactions during a vacation, this can alert them.
Alternatively, if you see multiple login attempts, you can quickly alert the user and block other attempts.
These actions do not imply an insider attack, but it is worth checking to make sure your data is not corrupted or misused.
By restricting an individual user’s access to the network and setting access time/usage limits, unauthorize access is no longer possible if the credentials are compromise.
User access management
Managing user access is one of the most important strategies to prevent insider attacks.
Organizations trust their employees and often provide access to confidential information such as personal information, financial information, salary, and credit card information.
To avoid threats and insider threats or attacks, companies should define and implement a minimum privilege model for all employees so that they can only have the information they need to do the job.
Despite strict security policies, shared passwords are one of the most important cybersecurity issues today.
By using someone else’s password, an attacker could gain unauthorized access to sensitive information and use it for their purposes.
Research shows that about 61% of people are more likely to share business passwords than personal passwords. Many people are interest in sharing sensitive passwords, but they do so for those who seem necessary or appropriate.
Shared passwords can be easily abuse.
Then what?
When you share your email password with someone else, they access your inbox, send emails like you; get banking information, and access your inbox can.
The best way to prevent internal attacks with shared passwords is:
- Prevent simultaneous access
- Select a new device input
- Limit multiple access attempts
- Learn to deviate from the user’s normal behavior
It is also important to conduct regular training sessions to inform employees that common passwords pose a serious threat to the security of the entire organization.
Also, make sure that your employees understand common passwords that can misuse their information.
Offer Immediate Response to Suspicious or Disruptive Access Behavior
If you detect suspicious or disturbing behavior on arrival, you should develop an emergency plan to prevent internal threats and protect your information.
What are suspicious or endangered access behaviors?
- The user is trying to access sensitive information that is not needed.
- Number of login failures
- Access from new devices is a rare time
Tracking all users is difficult, so you should consider using automated tools to help you automatically track; Analyze, and block these suspicious user sessions.
What is more important?
The most important part of resolving suspicious or annoying user behavior is how quickly you can block access to them and prevent internal attacks.
Automated tools help monitor user activity, alert you during unusual behavior, and immediately block access to them. This triggers a potential attack from inside.
Automate Enforcement of Security Policies
Employees can easily endanger the company, whether by accident or harmful behavior and can lead to security breaches.
However, you can automate your security policy by installing the appropriate software.
For example, employees may not be allow to email or open attachments from unknown senders or upload company files to Google Drive or Dropbox.
To ensure the best security protocols, companies need to monitor privileged user access and provide additional vigilance.
Why?
Create new system rules to prevent premium users from increasing system privileges, accessing sensitive information; Opening backdoor accounts, or editing system files or configurations.
Have a Digital IT Forensics Team Examine Security Breaches
If your organization’s security is at stake or seems to be at stake, you may face many technical and time-consuming questions.
Many IT groups provide tools and information to break security rules, but most IT groups do not. They may not be trained in forensic methods or may not know how to look for violations.
A team of digital IT professionals can help you understand the scale of the breach and its causes.
It helps you answer important questions such as:
- How did the flaw appear?
- What are the suspension size and business impact?
- How can this fight?
- A team of digital IT experts checks the networks and accounts of unauthorized users.