Data breaches are a major threat to every firm. But while the popular image is often of shadowy hackers hunched over a laptop somewhere trying to break into systems, the truth is that the majority of incidents - up to 60% - originate from within the business. Despite this, just 10% of security budgets go towards developing insider threat programs.
Whether intentional or otherwise, tackling insider threats needs to be a top priority for any security team. One essential part of this is training your employees on how to spot and report such incidents, and what to do to avoid becoming the next victim.
Insider threats come in a wide variety of forms, but essentially, they all refer to breaches that originate within the organization rather than from external sources. This doesn't necessarily mean outside parties aren't involved at all - many insider breaches are the result of successful phishing scams, for example - but what they have in common is that the incident could not have occurred without the actions of an internal employee.
The majority of these are unintentional. This can range from mistakes made by an IT worker while configuring a piece of software to an end-user falling for a social engineering attempt, reusing weak passwords or losing sensitive materials. Indeed, according to the Ponemon Institute's 2020 Cost of Insider Threats survey, negligence by employees or contractors is behind 62% of insider data breaches.
When they are intentional, these threats can be even more dangerous. Disgruntled employees who feel they've been badly treated or are about to leave their job can be especially dangerous, as they know exactly what your most valuable assets are and what they can do to cause damage.