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Today's businesses are highly susceptible to insider threats for a legitimate reason.
According to the Insider Threat Report, 68 percent of the security teams polled believe they are high to somewhat exposed to insider attacks.
Insider threat incidents have risen 44% over the past two years, with costs per incident up more than a third to $15.38 million.
Insider assaults have considerably grown over the past several years, whether from unintentional insiders vulnerable to phishing scams or malevolent insiders who want to reveal important information. An insiders threat is usually generated through:
Any current or former employees
Contractors
Business partners
Other individuals who access sensitive information and IT systems may harm the company.
Do Insider Attacks Cost Your Business?
The fact that many security teams can be unaware of the financial impact insider attacks can have on a business is one of the study's most concerning findings, as per Cybersecurity Insiders.
The average cost of a cyber event nowadays at major firms might be anywhere from $270,000 to more than $20 million.
It would help if you dealt with forensic concerns and financial damage to determine how the occurrence occurred. You may need to employ outside experts, undertake more training, or buy new equipment to plug any gaps. All of them, taken together, result in an unanticipated expenditure for your company.
When discussing cybersecurity, we typically imagine outside hackers trying to get their hands on private data. On the other hand, insider threats are swiftly becoming a top concern for businesses.
Some Crucial Insider Threats Statistics:
Statistics on insider threats indicate that these incidents are becoming more frequent and that most companies are not equipped to handle them.
According to the Global Report on Insider Threats 2022;
· The cost per insider threat in 2022 is $15.38 million.
· Insider threat incidents have risen 44% over the past two years.
· 60% of companies said managers with access to sensitive information are the top insider threat actors.
· More than two out of three insider threat incidents are caused by negligence.
· Every year, more than 34% of businesses worldwide are affected by insider threats.
· A whopping 90% of data breaches occur due to human error.
Is there anyway to minimize the threat caused by insider attacks?
Policies, processes, and technology that help avoid or lessen the effects of privilege misuse can be used to handle insider risks. You may reduce the possibility of your sensitive data being compromised by following these best practices to stop insider attacks.
1- Include insider threat knowledge in the recurring security education for all staff members
About one-third of all insider cyberattacks are thought to have involved unintentional individuals. This implies that an insider accidentally permitted or aided an attack. This can happen if a team member reads a phishing email or downloads a suspicious file or if a staff member inserts an infected USB onto their office computer. The most straightforward approach to stop these kinds of threats is annual security training that should be given to all employees to know how to react in the event of a security issue. Your first line of defense in reducing human error is well-trained personnel.
2- Limit data transfer and copying:
It can be required to prevent people from moving files to other locations or transferring data to external sources like USBs or external email addresses, depending on the sort of data your firm holds. This will make it more challenging for disgruntled workers to steal data or unintentionally leak private information to third parties.
3- Determine actors who pose a risk and promptly investigate Abnormal activities:
Because most businesses are too preoccupied to seek external dangers, employees frequently break a firm's trust without expecting to be held accountable. It is, therefore, highly advantageous for you to look into any unexpected behavior that occurs on the LAN of your business. According to Gartner, you may halt an attack before it does significant harm by keeping an eye on user activity on your network.
4- Restriction of resources to internal users:
Users' accounts should only have the authorization necessary to carry out their duties, without any further rights, by the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP), also known as the concept of the least authority or the principle of minimal privilege.
Users should only be provided with the tools they need to do their tasks. To reduce the chance of them investigating places they shouldn't be in, the access should only be sufficient for them to complete their responsibilities.
5- Deactivate the accounts of former workers:
Through their accounts with the organization, former employees can access a company's network in one of the simplest methods possible. The first thing you should do when an employee leaves your organization is to close down and disable all of their logins and access rights. You don't need to dwell on it or make a big deal. They have more time to take advantage of their access the longer you wait.
6- Internal session timeouts configuration:
To defend your network from inside attacks, use session timeouts. By stopping Windows and other sessions from continuing to run while the user isn't using the computer, this move will help users retain their security. The longer individuals are hooked to a local network, the more likely they may unintentionally or willfully provide someone pretending to be their computer access.
7- Watch out for third-party vendors:
A data breach involving a third-party vendor was encountered by 51% of survey participants, according to a study on third-party risk management by Secure Link and the Poneman Institute. Internal networks of businesses are frequently accessible to external parties, increasing the risk of security lapses.
8- Create segments for your network:
Network segmentation is breaking up an organization's network into several smaller networks instead of just one big one. This allows you to separate the departments' activities while still securely monitoring and measuring traffic movement between these networks.
9- Use multifactor authentication:
Due to the prevalence of using weak passwords to access data and the advancement of password-cracking technologies, it is now simpler than ever to hack into an employee's computer and access sensitive data. To protect your company's most critical apps, try implementing robust multiactor authentication procedures. As a result, it will be far more challenging for an unauthorized person to access important data.
10- Establish physical security in the work environment:
Another measure to stop insider theft is to keep employees away from your company's most vital infrastructure. Make sure personnel have a location to store sensitive data and that the higher-value systems are isolated. For accessing sensitive information, it's also advisable to utilize biometric authentication or, at the absolute least, a two-factor verification method.
DON'T BE A VICTIM – MITIGATE INSIDER THREATS TODAY
Even though you have confidence in your personnel, trust slips frequently. If it occurs, it might have a substantial negative impact on your company. Don't wait too long if you don't already have protections in place. The advice given above will assist in preventing, detecting, and mitigating harmful and potentially bankrupting insider threats.
If you require help to manage and mitigate the risk against cyber threats and compliance with the latest cyber security standards, please reach out to us at info@yottabyte.ltd or visit our website at https://www.yottabyte.ltd for more details.