This is the fourth and last part of a multi-part series. We encourage you to also read the blogs: Zero Trust 101 for SMEs, What is Zero Trust and Why is Zero Trust Important.
A key component of the Zero Trust approach for handling Insider Threats is identifying user behavior that deviates from the normal. 40% of insider incidents involved an employee with privileged access to company assets. For example high profile users like network engineers, IT security pros, IT auditors, database and systems admins, developers, and data center managers. Since these users can modify or delete data, including audit logs, access corporate resources and other sensitive information – even if that access is not necessary for them to perform their job – they are often targeted by APT attacks.
The DTEX i3 team compared data with recent survey data from the Ponemon “2022 Cost of Insider Threats Report”, the data showed there was a 72% increase in actionable insider threat incidents. This revealed that so many incidents go unreported, the actual cost is definitely considerably higher. Having a main focus on how to prevent these insider threats can help reduce the risk of a mass data breach within your organization.
Ways to prevent Insider Threats:
- By adopting a user-focused view, a Zero rust approach can assist security teams to quickly detect user behavior anomalies and manage user risk from a centralized location.
- User behavior analysis (UBA) and fine-grained machine learning algorithms can detect when users deviate from normal activity patterns or behave differently from their peers.
- Even if a malicious actor manages to gain access, putting appropriate controls on the data, monitoring access, and preventing unauthorized movement can prevent them from achieving their goals.
