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Reduce and Manage Your Organization’s Insider Threat Risk

Insider threats are not always malicious, but that doesn’t mean they won’t cause damage.

  • The hard digital wall has crumbled. Organizations have focused on defending against external threats but equally need to protect against insider threats.
  • Poor visibility into your insider threats cannot continue as they can cause significant damage to your organization’s business, workflow, revenue, and reputation.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • You can’t just throw tools at a human problem. While organizations should monitor critical assets and groups with privileged access to defend against malicious behavior, good management and supervision can help detect and prevent attacks from happening in the first place.
  • Insider threats will persist without appropriate action and culture change. Training and consistent communication of best practices will mitigate vulnerabilities to accidental or negligent attacks.
  • Without a formal policy and procedure, monitoring for insider threats can only be ad hoc at best, or at worst miss essential information. Target your monitoring of critical assets and users with privileged access to cover all kinds of insider threats.

Impact and Result

  • Effective and efficient management of insider threats begins with a threat and risk assessment to establish which assets and which employees are associated with sensitive or critical data, as well as to determine the current maturity of your security posture.
  • This blueprint will walk through the steps of understanding what constitutes insider threat, your current security maturity, how to implement an insider threat program, and best practices for monitoring your organization.

Reduce and Manage Your Organization’s Insider Threat Risk Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should reduce and manage your organization’s insider threat risk, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

Reduce and Manage Your Organization's Insider Threat Risk – Executive Brief
Reduce and Manage Your Organization's Insider Threat Risk – Phases 1-2

1. Appreciate what insider threats are and where they come from

Understand the risks and threats associated with insider threat. Consider the controls to minimize insider threat. Include insider threats as part of your threat and risk assessment.

Reduce and Manage Your Organization's Insider Threat Risk – Phase 1: Understand What Insider Threats Are and Where They Come From
Security Threat and Risk Assessment Tool
Security Threat and Risk Assessment Process Template

2. Implement an insider threat program

Develop an insider threat program. Create a microsegmentation of assets and users. Customize an employee monitoring policy.

Reduce and Manage Your Organization's Insider Threat Risk – Phase 2: Implement an Insider Threat Program
Employee Monitoring Policy – IT-Facing
Employee Monitoring Policy – Employee-Facing

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 2-phase advisory process. You'll receive 4 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Understand what insider threats are and where they come from
  • Call 1: Establish a TRA.
  • Call 2: Explore the elements of a mature insider threat program.

Guided Implementation 2: Implement an insider threat program
  • Call 1: Create a microsegmentation.
  • Call 2: Develop an employee monitoring policy.

Authors

Marc Mazur

Logan Rohde

Contributors

  • Eric Andresen, IT Security Manager, SSAB Americas
  • Jeff Tandy, Senior IT Security Specialist, General Dynamics Land Systems
  • Bob Turner, CISO, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • 1 anonymous contributor, Network End Security Manager, Municipal Government

Related Content: Governance, Risk & Compliance

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