When you think of cyber security threats, what do you think of? Commonly the lay understanding of threats to cyber security is a malevolent third party, intent on bringing companies to their knees. This is usually how we tend to read about them whenever they flood our Twitter feed. However, what many of us do not often consider is the role that company insiders may have, be it nefarious or carelessly, in breaching your company’s cyber security.
Cyber security is the conglomeration of systems and processes implemented into our company’s network in order to protect it from attacks from both within or outside. Anyone with unauthorized access has the ability to corrupt data, leak sensitive information or even put our companies to a halt.
Hence, cyber security is so important; all organizational bodies, everything from the government to schools, store an unprecedented amount of data. Much of this data is sensitive or confidential: financial data, personal data, intellectual property.
As Cyber attacks become more sophisticated, it is increasingly more important than ever to ensure you have rigorous and sophisticated cyber security in place to stop the leaking or interception of sensitive data.
However, when the threats to cyber security are coming from within the organization, especially considering that anyone can potentially be a threat to cyber security, it’s hard to plan and prevent all attacks.
Consider that threats to cyber security oftentimes are due to human error, unattended devices left lying around, missent emails, all of which may be unwittingly catastrophic. Some employees wish to damage the company or steal from them, selling data or intelligence to competitors. And some are simply tricked by malware or phishing attacks. These are all common ways you can find your company in breach of cyber security.
Because they are coming from within and from presumably trusted systems, they may be entirely unnoticed and fly under the radar of many detection technologies.
Thankfully, as threats to cyber security become more sophisticated, so too are prevention and analytical procedures. Artificial intelligence has made spotting potential insider threats to cyber security far easier and quicker.
Nevertheless, cyber security specialists and experts recommend a top-down approach to cyber security. This means a focus on management to be aware and implement their own security measures to maximize protection and ensure threats are minimized.
These measures include:
Prioritizing Most Valuable Data
Not all data is created equally. Whilst most if not all of it should have sophisticated protections in place. It is doubly important to ensure your most valuable or sensitive data is prioritized with the strongest data.
Sophisticated AI & Analytics
Deviations in typical patterns of behavior are oftentimes a sign of potential malicious intent. Deep analytics track and understand what typical or rudimental patterns of behavior are so that when something diatribes that or deviates from it, it can flag it up as a potential risk to security. This is why it’s so important to have a rigorous and up-to-date system in place so that any compromises to security are immediately addressed and do not slip under the radar. However, on a human level, understanding who you are working with and who may be a potential risk is the first and foremost way of preventing it before the threat has even been made.