Trust, But Verify: Combat Insider Risk With Continuous Security Monitoring

August 4, 2021

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Insider risk protection poses a conundrum: How do you achieve effective security without treating your people like they’re a threat?

There’s no faster way to harm morale than to treat your people like you don’t trust them — especially when only 1.8% of all data activity represents risk¹. But unless you have intelligent protection against insider threats, you could be exposing your business to data theft and commercial damage.

That protection needs to be specialized, too. Over two-thirds (69%) of organizations say they were breached due to an insider threat and confirm they had a prevention solution in place at the time of the breach¹ — showing that relying on general solutions to combat insider threats is like deploying an umbrella to counteract the hole in your boat.

And it’s not just morale and data that’s at risk with sub-standard solutions. Some security policies make it difficult for employees to access the information they need most, hindering collaboration. Rigid rules and knee-jerk permission revocation at the first sniff of trouble are guaranteed to slow employees down — harming rather than helping your business.

What’s the solution?

Thankfully, there is a solution that doesn’t involve eroding trust. Instead of blocking, questioning and accusing your teams, you can continuously comb and monitor file activity to look out for signs of misuse, and only intervene when it’s absolutely necessary.

With the “trust, but verify” approach, you assume honest intent, but remain aware of markers of red-flag behaviors and have systems in place to catch them.

To implement this method effectively, you’ll need to deploy continuous security monitoring. Read on to find out what that is, how it works and how it can help you combat Insider Risk.

What is continuous security monitoring and why is it so effective?

Continuous security monitoring automates your company’s insider risk detection. Working in the background, it constantly monitors assets and user behavior in real-time to identify threats.

This takes away the need for manual input and rigid rules, which are prone to leaving gaps in defense or stifling employee productivity and morale. It’s especially important now, as businesses embrace new, asynchronous ways of working.

With people working remotely, the threat level of Insider Risk has risen. Employees could be unknowingly leaving sensitive company data vulnerable to exploitation through insecure third-party transfers, bad file hygiene, open-ended file permissions and more. Half of office workers say they now see their work devices as a personal device, and 84% of IT Decision Makers worry that this attitude increases their company’s risk of a security breach.²

In the face of that kind of threat, comprehensive monitoring solutions take the difficulty (and questionable ethics) of monitoring user behavior and analysing events out of human hands. Advanced AI takes over — intelligently identifying and flagging problem behavior and suspicious file activity on your behalf.

This makes it a powerful tool for combating Insider Risk. And it also helps you mitigate the dangers of working with vendors, agencies and other authorized third parties.

Our approach to comprehensive, continuous monitoring

Incydr offers all of the above and more — without slowing your employees down. With Incydr, you can protect your data, company morale and business interests without subjecting your people to invasive user-based monitoring techniques such as screen recording or keystroke logging.

Incydr helps you to implement a continuous security monitoring system without the need for manual rule implementation and policy-based approaches. And, importantly, Incydr monitors your data and focuses on file activity rather than your people.

When monitoring file activity, Incydr watches for file, vector and user Insider Risk Indicators (IRIs), which are activities or characteristics that indicate corporate data is at risk of exposure or exfiltration. Incydr then uses these IRIs to determine the overall risk of a detected event and its severity.

Learn how Incydr can help you continuously monitor for and manage Insider Risk.

Or, to find out more about implementing an Insider Risk Management program, check out this blog on 5 simple steps to get started with Insider Risk Management.