Insider Threat Risks and How to Detect Them Through Employee Monitoring

Contrary to external threats, such as hackers breaking in from the outside, internal threats are posed by individuals inside your organization. They can be your employees, managers, partners, or contractors - anyone with legitimate access to the confidential data, systems, and premises and uses this access in ways that harm your business.

Insider threats appear in many forms, each requiring slightly different detection methods. We can broadly categorize them into malicious insiders, negligent insiders, and compromised insiders.

When we think about insider threats, this type usually comes to mind first. Malicious insiders intentionally inflict damage out of revenge after being passed over for promotion or facing disciplinary action, ideological reasons, or even fun. However, the absolute majority of malicious insider incidents - 89% - are driven by personal financial gain. Insiders can:

• Steal sensitive customer data, trade secrets, or financial information to sell to competitors or for personal gain.

• Sabotage the company by deleting critical files, disrupting systems, or installing malware.

• Manipulate financial records, create fraudulent accounts, or embezzle for personal enrichment.

• Steal proprietary designs, formulas, or other intellectual property to sell to competitors or start their own business.

Malicious insiders are not undercover superagents. They can be your disgruntled system administrator who, feeling undervalued, deletes critical customer databases before leaving the company. Or a sales representative systematically exporting data to sell it to competitors to cover the piling bills. Malicious insiders are ordinary employees deliberately harming the organization. Yet, they are responsible for 25% of insider threat incidents.

Not all insiders are driven by malice. Negligent employees do not want to harm the organization deliberately, but their unintentional mistakes and careless behavior may cause as much damage as malicious actions. An astonishing 88% of all data breach incidents are caused or significantly worsened by employee mistakes. Negligent insiders often lack awareness or training to recognize the threat or are simply reckless. Their following actions can lead to serious security breaches:

• clicks on links in phishing emails, unknowing downloading malware onto company devices;

• using easily guessable passwords or reusing passwords across multiple accounts;

• storing sensitive data in unsecured locations;

• sharing confidential information via unencrypted channels;

• bypassing established security protocols, disabling security software, or ignoring security policies due to convenience or lack of understanding;

• sending sensitive information to the wrong recipient by mistake;

• unintended release or publication of personal information and other human errors.

An example of a negligent insider can be an employee in accounts payable receiving a seemingly legitimate email. The email asks to update banking details for a vendor. The employee does not check the sender's email thoroughly, click the link, enter the credentials on a fake login page, and unknowingly grant hackers access to the company's financial system.

As a result of negligence, an employee's account may become compromised by external actors. The credential thief acquires an employee's legitimate login credentials through phishing, malware, or other methods. The attacker then acts as that employee, stealing confidential data or engaging in other malicious activities. Credential theft is the reason for 20% of insider threat incidents.

So, how do we detect insider threats and prevent them? As mentioned earlier, traditional security methods are efficient against external attacks but often blind to internal dangers. That is where employee monitoring comes into play.

If employee monitoring is implemented strategically and ethically, it lets organizations see into the staff's work processes, behavior, and communications. This way, security specialists can identify anomalous behaviors, policy violations, and signs of malicious intent that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Let's explore the key employee monitoring features for insider threat detection and how they can reveal malicious actors.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a sophisticated set of features to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or transmission. It detects and helps manage potential data breaches, exfiltration, misuse, and accidental exposure.

DLP systems identify sensitive information within the organization and act as a digital sentinel. They track the movement of confidential information, flag unauthorized attempts to transfer, copy to external devices or cloud storage, or print it out. DLP systems also have alerting mechanisms to notify security specialists and managers about the incident.

Meticulous tracking of sensitive data allows DLP solutions to detect both malicious and negligent insider threats.

User and Entity Behaviour Analytics (UEBA) tools use advanced analytics techniques, including AI and machine learning, to detect anomalous behavior and potential security threats within an organization's network. First, UEBA analyzes the activity of users (employees, customers, and contractors) and entities (applications, devices, and servers) to establish baseline patterns of normal activity. After that, the system continuously monitors the users' and entities' behavior and compares it against established baselines. If it detects any deviations from the norm, it flags them as potential security threats. Each anomaly is assigned a risk score, which increases with more suspicious behavior. When risk scores exceed predefined thresholds, the system alerts the security specialist or the manager for investigation and potential action.

UEBA is extremely effective against insider threats, compromised accounts, and other attack methods that may bypass traditional security tools. Its effectiveness lies in its ability to detect threats that do not match predefined attack patterns. At the same time, UEBA shows a lower rate of false positives since it understands normal behavior patterns.

Tracking employees' activity during the workday reveals what websites and applications they use. This way, organizations can detect access to unauthorized or high-risk websites or excessive time on non-work-related sites (which might be a sign of disengagement or malicious planning in some cases). Applications tracking can also reveal unauthorized software installations that might pose security risks.

In cases of data breaches, activity monitoring helps to find the one responsible for the incident and provide the necessary evidence. One of our clients has recently shared their story about how CleverControl helped them reveal an insider selling their data to competitors. You can read about this insider threat case more in our blog.

Communication monitoring provides insights into the content and patterns of employee communications. The system continuously monitors various communication channels, including email, video conferencing, file sharing, collaboration tools, and instant messaging platforms. Advanced algorithms and AI analyze communication patterns and content and scan the gathered data for warning signs. These signs can be suspicious language, or keywords related to data leaks, sabotage, or collusion. When the system detects suspicious activities, it triggers an automated response or notifies the security specialist for immediate action.

Communication monitoring significantly enhances the company's ability to resist internal threats; however, it must be implemented responsibly.

Insider threats remain a significant concern for all organizations of all sizes. They may come in various forms, from malicious intent to simple negligence and carelessness. Insider threats are so dangerous because they are committed by trusted employees from within the security perimeter and, therefore, are much harder to detect and prevent. Employee monitoring is a good solution for detecting and preventing insider risks. Its DLP, UEBA, communication, and activity monitoring functionality is the necessary toolkit for any organization that wants to timely detect and prevent security breaches.