What is an insider threat?

Today's organizations face numerous challenges in securing their sensitive data and digital assets against evolving cyberthreats. While large-scale cyberattacks often dominate the headlines, insider threats can be equally devastating to organizations.

What is an insider threat?

Insider threats are security risks that originate from users having legitimate access to an organization's network and databases. These users can be current or former employees or third-party vendors or partners with legitimate user credentials. Insider attacks are not easy to identify since the user who causes them has valid access and authorization to the network, thereby making it difficult to distinguish them from normal users.

Classification of insider threats

Not all insider threats are caused by users with a malicious intent. Sometimes, lack of awareness and negligence of insiders can result in compromised security. Depending on the user's intention, insider threats can be classified into the following types:

1. Malicious insider threats

These threats are caused by insiders who seek to harm their organization or exploit confidential data for their personal gain. Their insider knowledge often makes it easier to carry out damaging attacks without raising suspicion.

2. Unintentional insider threats

These threats are accidental and often caused due to inadequate training and lack of security protocol awareness. They can include actions like mishandling sensitive data and falling for phishing emails.

3. Negligent insider threats

Negligent insiders may not have a malicious intention but their careless actions cause significant harm. This could involve failing to follow security policies, misconfiguring systems, or using weak passwords. Careless users can be of two kinds:

• i. Pawns: These are the users who are tricked into malicious acts through social engineering practices. For example, a user who has been manipulated by an imposter to disclose sensitive data.
• ii. Goofs: These are users who don't adhere to security procedures. For example, a user who stores sensitive client data on their personal device, knowing that it is against security principles.

The impact of insider attacks looms larger than other cyberattacks due to the combination of legitimate access, inherent trust, and advanced privileges possessed by insiders. With an intimate knowledge of the systems and the ability to navigate around defenses, they can operate undetected for extended periods.

A recent major insider attack happened at Twitter in 2020, when several high-profile accounts, including Elon Musk, Barack Obama, and Bill Gates, were compromised. Attackers illicitly accessed these accounts and posted tweets endorsing a Bitcoin scam where users were promised double returns if they sent Bitcoin to a particular address. As these misleading tweets went viral, they created significant unrest and uncertainty among the platform's users. The breach stemmed from a well-executed social engineering strategy, wherein attackers used phishing techniques on Twitter employees to secure login details. Twitter's security personnel acted swiftly to take down the fraudulent tweets and regain control of the affected accounts. The incident raised serious questions about the security of social media platforms and highlighted the risk of insider threats.

A typical attack flow

Detecting insider threats

Detecting insider threats can be an exhaustive job as it demands a constant watch for any anomalous user behavior.

Some of the indicators and behaviors to detect insider threats are:

• Unusual access patterns, such as employees trying to log in to systems or files outside of their assigned duties or working hours.
• User behavior that suddenly changes, such as accessing an abnormally large amount of data or copying private material to portable storage devices. Any unauthorized use or efforts to escalate privileges should set off alarms.
• Major changes in an employee's behavior at work, attitude, or unexpected financial difficulty may point to possible insider threat motivations.
• Indicators of unauthorized activity can also include a spike in failed login attempts, odd login locations, or recurrent access to prohibited regions.

Mitigating insider threats

A multi-layered defense plan is necessary to deal with insider threats. Security tools with features like user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) and threat intelligence can be crucial aspects of this strategy. By creating baselines of typical user and entity behavior, ML-based UEBA can detect deviations that can be indicative of malicious behavior. This, combined with real-time network monitoring, allows for the prompt detection of aberrant activity, giving security personnel the chance to take action before any serious harm is caused.

A SIEM solution that can integrate UEBA with threat intelligence and incident response will help your organization deal with insider threats.

Furthermore, the danger of unauthorized access can be decreased by adopting stringent access restrictions, the least privilege principle, and continuous surveillance of privileged accounts.

Regular staff education and awareness campaigns are also essential parts of mitigation. Fostering a culture of cybersecurity awareness encourages employees to feel responsible for reporting questionable activities right away, allowing for timely intervention.