Insiders: The Enemy Within

AUTHORIZED USERS or employees pose one of the greatest security risks to an organization, as they have the access to sensitive company data

- Rachana Jha

Security breaches are a real concern for any organization. Though any sort of malicious breach can cause harm to organizations, the immensity of the impact of the insider threat is much more than the impact of external attacks. The reason why insider attacks are more dangerous is that it is committed by people who know the organization well. They are privileged users, aware of sensitive secrets of organization and have access to it. In the past, we have also heard of insider bank frauds at some leading banks which have alerted organizations about the inside risk within their organizations. This can also hamper the corporate security of an organization that comes from within the organization. In some cases, though these attacks are unintentional, in many cases, attacks are committed due to greed or antipathy towards the organization. According to a study done by Forcepoint (a company specializing in computer security software), only 43 percent of organizations feel that they can monitor privileged user activity well, while 63 percent do not have enough information in this context. Any security breaches in the organization not only result in its organizational loss but also damage its image as a secure global partner around the globe.

Insider thefts put organization at risk

Detection of risk, responding to insider attacks and prevention is a very challenging task for the Information Security team. Though insider attacks can be caught, they are more hard to detect than an external threat. The Information Security team of any organization has the responsibility to deal with risks like IT sabotage, theft of intellectual property (IP) and fraud.