Insider threats generally fit into three categories:
- Malicious: someone who intentionally harms an organization
- Negligent: someone whose carelessness harms an organization
- Accidental: someone whose mistake harms an organization
Gaining an understanding of the different types of threats offers an opportunity to learn more about your role in protecting information.
The Malicious Insider
Malicious insiders are often disgruntled individuals or those that seek to profit by stealing from their organizations. For example, trade secrets (like a recipe or blueprint) carry a massive amount of value. Divulging those secrets to competitors could irreparably destroy an organization’s competitive edge. Personal gain aside, some malicious insiders simply want to cause great harm by destroying or intentionally leaking confidential data.
The Negligent Insider
Insider threats don’t always have malicious intentions. Imagine, for example, an employee breaking policy by downloading confidential data to a personal computer, or leaving a work-issued device in an unsecured area where a thief could easily steal it. Even if that person had no intention of causing harm, their lapse in judgment and disregard for policy creates just as much risk as malicious insider threats.
The Accidental Insider
We’re all human. We all make mistakes. Unfortunately, sometimes those mistakes yield major consequences. Accidentally emailing sensitive information to the wrong party, misconfiguring server settings that leave a door open for cybercriminals, and misplacing sensitive documents that contain confidential data are just a few examples of how small mistakes could cause huge problems. In fact, human error is one of the leading causes of security incidents
So what does this mean for you and your role? First, it’s important to recognize that the entire concept of insider threats comes down to access: Attackers want it; insiders have it and must protect it. Most people wouldn’t intentionally abuse that access for malicious purposes, but mistakes can and do happen.
For that matter, the goal of many external threats is to steal your access. They want you to make mistakes, like clicking on a phishing link or plugging in a random USB flash drive. Both actions could infect systems with malware.
Thus, it’s everyone’s duty to stay alert, know and follow policies, and take every precaution to separate the “insider” from the “threat.”
Article retrieved from Understanding the Insider Threat by The Security Awareness Company – KnowBe4, Inc. (2023)