Protecting Against Inevitable Insider Threats

The seven pillars of the Department of Defense (DOD) Zero Trust Reference Architecture provide a comprehensive framework for securing today’s organizations. However, the data layer – arguably the most critical and foundational pillar – remains insufficiently addressed. This gap is evident in the persistent and increasingly detrimental cyberattacks targeting sensitive data across all industries, underscoring the urgent need for a more robust and actionable approach to data-level security within the Zero Trust model.

It’s important to clearly delineate an insider threat. It’s something that’s initiated from within – whether it’s purposeful or not. Insider threats differ from other security concerns because they’re inevitable. Insider threats are going to wield themselves. This makes swift detection, immediate isolation of the offending individual, and rapid restoration of compromised files critical to minimizing damage. Below are the most significant insider threats to corporate data. Each poses unique risks that can lead to severe financial, operational and reputational damage:

Ransomware – Malicious software that blocks access to data by encrypting it and demanding a ransom for access to the unique decryption key.
Data Exfiltration (Theft or Unauthorized Removal) – Stealing sensitive data such as trade secrets, intellectual property, customer records or financial information.
Data Manipulation or Sabotage – Altering, corrupting or deleting corporate data to disrupt operations or harm the organization.
Unauthorized Data Access and Usage – Insiders access sensitive corporate data without a legitimate purpose or authorization.

Many people may not perceive threats like ransomware as an “insider” threat since it’s often initiated by an external attacker. However, ransomware requires the action of an insider – such as an unsuspecting employee clicking on a phishing email, downloading a malicious attachment, or visiting a compromised website – to infiltrate the environment. Once introduced, the ransomware spreads, encrypting files and potentially exfiltrating data, ultimately causing a significant data breach.

While not gaining the same level of attention, the theft of intellectual property (IP) is just as significant as ransomware and, arguably, more costly to corporations in terms of both financial loss and reputational damage. A prominent example occurred in 2016 when it was reported that an engineer at Google’s self-driving car division, downloaded approximately 14,000 confidential files before resigning and starting his own self-driving truck company.

Such cases underscore a broader trend: according to a 2015 survey by Biscom, 87% of employees who left a job admitted to taking data they had created, believing it was their own property. Shockingly, 59% felt justified in taking the data, and 77% believed it would be helpful in their new roles. This highlights a critical reality for organizations – the question isn’t if your corporate data assets will be taken, but when. As companies increasingly depend on data for a competitive advantage, the need for robust data protection strategies has never been greater.

That’s one of the core elements of insider threat protection – the ability to immediately return an environment to its state before an attack so that no data is compromised. It’s this combination of the ability to notice unusual user behavior AND protect the data layer that is the ultimate need.

A Comprehensive, Cohesive Protection Approach

Insider threats pose a significant danger to corporate data assets, but the key to mitigating their impact lies in accepting the reality that an insider attack is truly inevitable. Addressing this reality requires a comprehensive, cohesive protection approach that emphasizes real-time detection, isolation and recovery.

Real-Time Detection

The quicker an attack is detected, the less damage it can inflict on a business. Insider threats, however, require tailored detection methods due to their unique nature. A robust detection strategy must include:

Identifying Ransomware Early: Detecting ransomware at the very moment it attempts to encrypt data, before any files are affected, is critical. Early detection can prevent catastrophic data loss.
Behavioral Tracking with Multi-Factor Analytics: Monitoring user behavior, particularly file actions, is essential. Multi-factor analytics can identify when user behavior deviates from the norm, signaling a potential threat.
AI-Powered Content Identification: Leveraging AI to tag critical and sensitive content digitally ensures that only authorized users can access it. Unauthorized attempts should be blocked in real time.
Controlling External Storage: Preventing data exfiltration by shutting down external storage options, such as USB drives, web storage accounts and email attachments, for controlled content, is a vital layer of defense.

These real-time detection mechanisms minimize the window of opportunity for attackers, reducing their potential impact.

Isolation of Threats

Once an insider attack is detected, immediate automated actions are necessary to mitigate further damage. The suspected user must be isolated from all network file access, preventing them from causing further harm. Simultaneously, security personnel must be alerted to investigate and address the situation. While many security solutions on the market generate alerts for potential security issues, they often overwhelm teams with alert fatigue due to false positives. To overcome this challenge, solutions must integrate multi-factor detection, significantly reducing false alarms and enabling security teams to focus on real threats.

Seamless Recovery

After containing the attack, recovering any compromised files is the final step. Traditional backup systems offer protection only up to a specific point in time, often leaving vast gaps in recoverability depending on their configuration. In such cases, organizations risk losing critical content or facing prolonged downtime as teams painstakingly analyze logs to identify affected files and manually restore them from backups. An innovative approach to this hurdle includes real-time roll-back of affected files alongside detection and isolation systems. By simply reverting files back to their pre-attack state, cybersecurity teams are eliminating the need for extensive log analysis or manual restoration efforts, ensuring rapid recovery and minimal operational disruption – a win-win approach welcomed by IT teams and their C-suites.