Insider Threat: Your biggest cyber risk comes from within

What is an Insider?

An insider is any person who has or had authorised access to or knowledge of an organisation’s resources, including personnel, facilities, information, equipment, networks, and systems. 

Examples of an insider may include:

• A person the organisation trusts, including employees, organisation members, and those to whom the organisation has given sensitive information and access.

• A person given a badge or access device identifying them as someone with regular or continuous access (e.g., an employee or member of an organisation, a contractor, a vendor, a custodian, or a repair person).

• A person to whom the organisation has supplied a computer and/or network access.

• A person who develops the organisation’s products and services; this group includes those who know the secrets of the products that provide value to the organisation.

• A person who is knowledgeable about the organisation’s fundamentals, including pricing, costs, and organisational strengths and weaknesses.

• A person who is knowledgeable about the organisation’s business strategy and goals, entrusted with future plans, or the means to sustain the organisation and provide for the welfare of its people.

What is an Insider Threat?

Insider threat is the potential for an insider to use their authorised access or understanding of an organisation to do to harm to that organisation.

This harm can include malicious, complacent, or unintentional acts that negatively affect the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of the organisation, its data, personnel, or facilities.

This threat can manifest as damage to the department through the following insider behaviors:

• Unauthorised disclosure of information

• Corruption, including participation in transnational organized crime

• Sabotage

• Workplace violence

• Intentional or unintentional loss or degradation of departmental resources or capabilities

What are the different types of Insider Threat?

Insider threats have a number of different types that can damage the security of an organisation. Here are three primary types of insider threats.

A.    MALICIOUS INSIDER

A malicious insider is an employee with the proper credentials, knowledge, and access to cause serious damage to your resources. The malicious insider is arguably the most immediate insider threat within your organisation. Their unique profile makes them a perilous threat to data resources and other sensitive information across the business.

As to why someone may become a malicious insider, the reasons can range from corporate espionage to a simply disgruntled employee looking to cause damage to the organisation. Since such an insider is almost impossible to identify, it can be challenging to set protocols or practices to thwart their damage.

B.    UNINTENTIONAL INSIDER

Your organisation may have taken the utmost care to insulate its most sensitive data from the primary data infrastructure or have the strictest access protocols in place. Still, an employee may choose to ignore it. Or they may simply not be completely aware of their responsibilities per these protocols. Or they may have forgotten to follow these protocols on a single occasion. Or they may not have installed the latest security patch upgrade. For many, this can be the hardest to counter since the threat is not intentional and is only borne out of carelessness or negligence.

Any of these can lead to disastrous results since a potential hacker may exploit any of these lapses to “piggyback” on their credentials through the secure entrance points you may have set across your network.

Employees are human, after all. And to err is human. However, erring in this instance can leave organisations in disarray with fines worth millions of pounds for gross incompetence.

C.    A MOLE

Arguably the most problematic and devastating insider threat your organisation is likely to face is a mole. A mole within the tech world refers to someone technically not an employee or associated with your organisation in any way but has still found a way to infiltrate your internal network.

What sets the mole apart from a malicious insider is that, unlike the former, the mole does not need physical or any pre-existing access to your network or sensitive information to cause damage.

Using a number of different tools or techniques, a hacker may gain access to an existing employee’s credentials or exploit an internal bug within your organisational security protocols.

Guidance: Protecting Against Insider Threats

Organisations can strengthen their defence against insider threats by adopting a layered approach that combines people, processes, and technology. Key recommendations include:

• Implement Regular Security Awareness Training
  Conduct annual security and data protection training for all employees, ensuring insider threat awareness is embedded in onboarding programmes for new staff. Training should cover how to recognise and report suspicious activity, including phishing attempts.

• Promote a Security-Conscious Culture
  Encourage staff to report potential threats by providing simple reporting mechanisms—such as phishing-report buttons within email clients—and reinforce this with simulated phishing exercises to test and improve resilience.

• Deploy Strong Endpoint Protection
  Use enterprise-grade endpoint protection software to monitor and respond to malicious activity, unauthorised access, or data exfiltration attempts.

• Leverage Threat Intelligence
  Establish or participate in threat intelligence networks to gain early insight into emerging attack vectors and techniques. Use this intelligence to implement proactive security controls and adapt to new risks swiftly.

• Implement Continuous Monitoring
  Operate or outsource a Security Operations Centre (SOC) to provide 24/7 threat monitoring, vulnerability scanning, and incident detection. Partnering with reputable cybersecurity providers can enhance visibility and response capability across your digital environment.

• Adopt External Threat Monitoring Tools
  Consider using tools that can detect data exposure, compromised credentials, or illicit activity both on corporate systems and across external environments such as the dark web.

• Foster Continuous Communication and Awareness
  Maintain regular communication about security responsibilities and best practices. Emphasise the role of every employee in protecting the organisation by identifying unusual behaviour and preventing human error.