Numerous high profile internal data breaches have been well publicized in the media. The most famous being the NSA leak by Edward Snowden, but the high-profile coverage and movie deals tend to make the concept seem a little far fetched. However, it’s becoming an all too real threat even in the small to medium-sized business sector.

While network security companies keep up with new solutions and employ best practices to combat internal security threats effectively, many companies are still not in a hurry to adopt these measures. In fact, the opposite is true. Most companies will heavily prioritize network security threats while managing insider cyber threats is put on the backburner.

Meanwhile, it’s easier than ever for people to gain access to Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) which allows users to quickly deploy malware on any given network. All it takes is one disgruntled employee with a lot of gall and intimate knowledge of your system to completely halt operations and possibly seize finances. Irreversible damage can be inflicted and millions lost by wiping out customer data alone.

Trust is something all business owners want to build within their company, but it is no longer something a CIO should take for granted or mandate into an operations policy. Here are five measures that can and should be put in place to mitigate the possibility of insider security threats.

1. Protect the physical location of your data.

If your servers are located in a data centre, there is little to worry about as the data centre will handle security. However, if your company owns its own servers and they’re located on site, they should be protected. That may mean hiring a security guard or installing a reliable digital lock to make sure that unauthorized people won’t have physical access to your servers.

2. Educate employees about security measures.

Communication is the cornerstone of every successful organization. The best way to prevent both internal security threats and careless mistakes is to make sure that your employees know about the dangers your company faces. Conduct awareness training. Educate your staff on the latest threats and the best practices to follow for prevention. Enlist the help of your team and make them a part of your cyber security solutions.

3. Implement best practices for password security.

An often-overlooked way that breaches can occur is through password sharing. If passwords are shared, they should be changed immediately afterwards to maintain security protocol. Best practices should include:

✓ Change default passwords as soon as possible
✓ Use strong, unique passwords for each account
✓ Modify passwords frequently
✓ Prohibit password sharing
✓ Limit account sharing

4. Install user action monitoring software.

A good option for internal threat detection and management is user activity monitoring software. It provides full visibility into the actions of each user working with the monitored system. The software can be installed on computers and provides video recordings of user screens. This allows you to see the users actions the way they saw it when they committed them, making it easier to investigate any suspicious or malicious activity. Some of these tools use behaviour analytics to reveal suspicious incidents, but that can lead to false positives. A better solution is to use customizable alerts, which are often reliable but may require some tweaking to set up.

5. Control internal access to sensitive data.

Access control is the easiest way to protect sensitive data. By minimizing the number of people with proper authorization, it allows you to keep track of who accessed sensitive data and when, which is a tremendous asset if an incident ever occurs. Access management solutions can sometimes be expensive or complicated to implement for smaller companies and may deter some from using it. These problems can be solved by using an affordable third party monitoring solution with some access control functionality.

If you need help implementing any of these strategies, contact Keystone Technologies in London, Ontario. Our experts can help protect your company’s sensitive data from both internal and external security threats. To learn more, give us at 519-451-1793 or email us today.