Security is vital for businesses, and those that rely heavily on their IT will invest a great deal in keeping their systems and data safe. However, no matter how efficient your firewalls and antivirus software are, there’s one problem that they can’t deal with: insider threats from your own employees. Today we’ll take a look at three ways that your security can be at risk from your staff, and how to manage the problem.
Accidents happen and employees are only human. Mistakes and accidental errors, which usually happen when data is in transit, are the most benign insider threat. There are ways to optimize the work environment to minimize such errors. For example, if you have a security policy but your staff haven’t been properly trained in what it is and how to comply with it, then you have a disconnect that can lead to problems.
This is a rather more common insider threat. These threats are still based in user error, but they arise from a lack of due diligence. It could be data that’s got lost in a database, malware being downloaded to the network or mobile devices being lost. It may not be premeditated, but sloppiness is a more serious problem for business owners.
Sometimes an insider who has IT access will behave with intentional malice towards an organization, bypassing the security policies the IT administrator has put in place. This can happen in a number of ways. It could be the intentional theft of important data, or the deliberate injection of malware. It could be a mole – an individual who’s really an outsider, but who has penetrated the organization and been granted access to IT resources. He or she then uses their position to pass on information to competitors, steal data to sell, or store it up to use for malicious purposes in the future.
Spotting insider threats can be difficult, because by definition it’s usually covert or intermittent. Still, there are ways to identify if there’s a bad actor at work.
Although it can be hard to spot, there are still some straightforward preventive measures you can take to eliminate insider threat problems.
Do you need help protecting your network and data against insider threats? Call the IT professionals at Quikteks today at (973) 882-4644 for advice.
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