5 Cybersecurity Tips to Protect Your Organization from Insider Threats
Insider threats are one of the most serious cybersecurity challenges that organizations face today. They can cause significant damage to the reputation, operations, and finances of an organization, as well as compromise its sensitive data and systems. Insider threats can originate from current or former employees, contractors, partners, or other trusted insiders who have legitimate access to the organization’s resources, but misuse or abuse them for malicious or negligent purposes. To protect your organization from insider threats, you need to adopt a proactive and comprehensive approach that involves the following five tips:
1. Watch out for disgruntled behaviors:
We all have our “not-so-good days” and sometimes it’s a bit difficult to tell it’s just momentarily or has some underlying reasons. Here are some signs to help you identify this behavior:
✓ Changes in quality of work
✓ Inappropriate interactions
✓ Tardiness
✓ Decreased collaboration with the team
2. Keep training:
Not all insider threats are intentional. Most of the time, they were from accidental issues. It is helpful for all the employees to have continuous training to keep them aware and be reminded of the dos and don’ts in cybersecurity. The technology rapidly advances, and we must keep up.
It is also very important for your employees to feel comfortable speaking up if they caused the accident. It’s easier to remediate if this is detected as soon as possible.
3. Revise company policies and procedures:
Writing company policies and procedures needs isn’t a one-time process. It’s time-consuming and we all have our ongoing duties and responsibilities. We don’t need to update them weekly or monthly. However having a scheduled review might be a good to revisit your company policies and procedures to see if anything needs to be changed or updated. Here are some helpful hints to revisit them:
✓ Legal and Regulatory Changes
✓ Industry Standards Changes
✓ Business Growth or Change
✓ Employee Feedback
✓ Incidents or Violations
✓ Technology Advancements
✓ Performance Metrics
✓ Employee Turnover
✓ Customer or Client Feedback
4. Effective Vendor and Partner Relationship Management:
Protecting your organization against insider threats, including those that may originate from vendors and business partners, is needed in maintaining cybersecurity. While keeping tabs on vendors and partners is one aspect, here are some cybersecurity tips to enhance your organization’s defense against insider threats:
✓ Vendor Risk Assessment: Thoroughly assess vendors’ cybersecurity practices before onboarding them.
✓ Contractual Security: Include cybersecurity requirements in vendor contracts, specifying consequences for breaches.
✓ Data Access Control: Define and restrict access to sensitive data, limiting it to authorized personnel.
✓ Continuous Monitoring: Regularly monitor vendors’ security practices and assess their compliance.
✓ Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Require MFA for vendors accessing your systems or data.
5. Don’t share your access:
There are many risks in sharing access credentials. A strict policy must be in place to make sure this doesn’t happen. We have an option to grant access privileges if needed. An audit periodically would also be great to make sure that the access that your team has still align with their current job role and responsibilities.
In a collaborative journey, trust strengthens bonds, but vigilance ensures our collective success.
Don’t let cybercriminals ruin your reputation and business. Secure your business with Gallop Technology Group’s Cybersecurity Services!
Visit our website www.GallopTechGroup.com to schedule your free network and security assessment!
Sources: cyber.gc.ca, ekransystem.com
