You might already know about the external risks that threaten the cybersecurity of your business, but are you aware of the insider threats that also exist?

In case you didn’t know, data protection regulations require your business to assess all possible threats to the sensitive data your business stores or manages.

While most businesses tend to focus their attention on outsider threats, they often overlook internal threats that exist right within their walls.

According to Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report, 30 percent of data breaches involved internal threats.

Unfortunately, all it takes is one disorderly or negligent employee to cause damage to your business.

So, how can you prevent this from happening to you?

In this blog, we will help you understand the different types of insider threats and how you can create a defense strategy to minimize these threats.

First let’s talk about what insider threats are and how they affect the cybersecurity of your business.

What Are Insider Threats?

Insider threats refer to security risks that originate from within an organization. Essentially, an insider threat involves someone who is a part of your business network or has access to it.

An Insider Threat Can Come From:

• Current employees
• Former employees
• Consultants
• Business partners
• Board members

Insiders with access to your business’s sensitive data can compromise the integrity of the data for any reason, whether it is intentional or not.

Now let’s take a look at two types of insider threats you should be aware of.

The Main Types of Insider Threats

There are two main types of insider threats, and both can do damage to your business if you allow it. Keep reading to find out what they are right now.

Insider Threat #1: The Malicious Insider

A malicious insider is anyone with legitimate access to your business’ network and sensitive data who decides to exploit the privilege either for financial gain or out of spite.

Out of the 4,716 insider incidents that were studied by the Ponemon Institute and IBM in the Cost of Insider Threats: Global Report 2020, 23 percent were related to criminal insiders.

The worst part? The report said the annual cost to companies due to criminal insiders is $4.08 million.

Insider Threat #2: The Negligent Insider

A negligent insider is a regular employee who falls prey to a cyberattack. A hacker then exploits their mistake to compromise your business’ sensitive data.

While these employees didn’t intentionally put your cybersecurity at risk, they are considered negligent because they either ignored security policies or weren’t vigilant enough to identify and protect themselves from cyberattacks.

As the more common type of insider threat, the report mentioned above found that 63 percent of insider security incidents in 2020 were caused by the negligent insider.

The annual cost to companies? A whopping $4.58 million.

Is your business at risk of either of these common insider threats?

Insider Threats And Your Business: Are You At Risk?

Imagine your business suffers a data breach due to one of these insider threats and then gets flagged by a regulator for not taking appropriate measures to avoid such a breach.

Not only is your sensitive data compromised, but you’re also facing hefty fines. This could pause your business operations for months, or worse, put you out of business for good.

Do you want to ensure this doesn’t happen to you?

Partner With Miami IT Experts To Keep Insider Threats Under Check

It’s time to make your data protection a priority, especially since cyberthreats have recorded an unprecedented surge during the ‘new normal.’

Don’t let an internal data breach harm your business.

Allow the cybersecurity experts at Third Power IT to help you monitor all cyber threats – both internal and external – so that you can keep running your business as usual.

Visit www.ThirdPowerIT.com to get started now.

The post Discover The Top Two Insider Threats To Your Business appeared first on Third Power IT – Managed IT Services.

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