What metrics are essential for monitoring insider threats?

User behaviour analysis is certainly a key consideration. Though you may need to apply some additional steps to aid this analysis. for example, you may want to monoitor servcie accounst to try and identify unuasal uses/ processes being conducted bt these addounts. Note: Such a threat is why you do not want to configure multiple applications to use the same service account. As if the service account is compromised all associated applications/ services will be compromised. You need to separate accounts with elevated rights from normal user accounts. To aid monitoring and management of elevated rights. You may also want to apply other account restrictions to aid monitoring, etc.

To effectively monitor insider threats, professionals can develop metrics based on three pillars: people, process, and technology. For instance: People: Implement User Behavior Analytics (UBA) to detect anomalies in individual activities. This involves tracking deviations from established patterns of behavior, such as irregular access to sensitive data. Process: Regularly audit and review security processes to ensure they are being followed. Metrics can include the frequency of policy violations, effectiveness of security training. Technology: Utilize technology tools to analyze system and network activity. This includes monitoring for unusual data transfers, access to restricted areas, and the use of privileged accounts.

Essential metrics for monitoring insider threats include unusual access patterns, data access rates, privilege escalation attempts, anomalous network traffic, login activity, data modifications, employee behavior changes, and third-party access. Regular analysis of these metrics helps detect and respond to potential insider threats proactively.

Does the organization have language in the contracts that IP created by the employee belows to organization? YES/ NO What about confidentiality language to maintain proprietary assets. YES/NO Does the company have a risk register and trade secret catalog YES/NO Does the firm use data discovery and data classification tools to ID and protect sensitive data, (also use watermarks or marking to ledger IP, CUI, etc) YES/No

Using User Behavior Analytics (UBA) is crucial in nonprofits with third-party systems for monitoring insider threats. UBA efficiently identifies anomalies in user behavior, such as irregular logins and unusual data access. This targeted approach is especially beneficial in resource-limited nonprofits, helping to focus on legitimate security concerns and protect sensitive data.

The lifecycle of a user's access can be hard to manage at times. Entitlement management in Microsoft Entra aims to simplify things by ensuring access to resources are requested with approval workflows and then removed after a pre-configured condition is met. This means if a user moves from one department to another, they should lose their previous access, thus reducing the blast radius should they turn out to be an insider threat. Also at times of insider threat discovery, it would be easy to identify what resources they had access to. Without a good access management solution with auditing, this wouldn't be possible.

Access management is vital for security, governing resource access by roles and responsibilities. Metrics, including access requests, approvals, denials, and more, enforce the principle of least privilege. Monitoring exceptions and violations offers insights into potential risks, facilitating proactive mitigation. Metrics for roles and permissions aid in identifying anomalies, ensuring a dynamic security stance. This not only prevents insider threats but aligns with regulatory standards, empowering organizations to adapt and enhance their access management strategies effectively.

To effectively monitor insider threats, the following considerations need to be addressed: ✓ Monitor users' activities using User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UBA) and score their actions based on risky behavior. ✓Specifically focus UBA on monitoring privileged users who have special permissions regarding critical assets within the organization. ✓Maintain the separation of duties or implement least privilege principles when accessing organizational assets. ✓Enforce change management process/procedure for any alterations made to organizational assets. ✓ Make additional use cases on SIEM for the direction as local to remote

Monitoring internal threats requires the use of access management, and key performance indicators center on limiting and tracking user access to sensitive information and systems. Authorization levels, user authentication patterns, and any anomalous access attempts are important metrics. Keeping an eye on the kind and frequency of access changes—particularly apprehensive adjustments to user privileges—helps detect possible insider threats. Metrics related to access management help to provide a thorough grasp of how users interact with important resources. This helps businesses identify and address any unauthorized or suspicious activity quickly, improving overall security measures.

In my experience, monitoring insider threats requires a combination of technical and behavioral metrics. Key metrics include unusual login activity, data access patterns, file transfers, and changes in user behavior. Additionally, monitoring privilege escalation, system log reviews, and anomalies in network traffic can be crucial for early detection of potential insider threats. Regularly reviewing these metrics helps organizations enhance their security posture against insider threats.

In the context of activity logging and auditing for insider threat monitoring, it's essential to focus on: 1. Comprehensive Log Collection: Capturing detailed logs of all user activities across systems and applications. 2. Real-Time Monitoring: Implementing real-time surveillance of activities to quickly detect and respond to anomalies. 3. Audit Trail Analysis: Regularly analyzing audit trails to identify patterns indicating potential threats or policy violations. 4. Contextual Logging Ensuring logs provide context, like time stamps and IP addresses, for better analysis. 5. Access Log Reviews Periodically reviewing access logs to detect unauthorized or unusual access patterns.

Activity tracking and auditing provide vital metrics for insider threat monitoring. Log-in history, file access, and system changes are examples of key indicators that can be used to identify anomalies that can indicate malicious activity. Frequent audits of activity logs strengthen overall security measures by improving visibility and supporting a proactive strategy for detecting and addressing insider threats.

Access management is the start. Logging and monitoring access and user activities comes after that. User behaviour and analytics help to improve security baseline and limit the risk exposure. User awareness also plays an important role since user is the weakest link

Extensive tracking of users' behavior may generate a lot of sensitive private data, which might fall under GDPR. The data can be used to evaluate employees' performance, which is again limited by labor regulations. The works council is likely to have a say in the introduction of such monitoring.

Maintaining and auditing logs is a critical investigative tool. It will help with the detection of both internal and external security threats, The frequency of such monitoring may be related top the organisation, data sensitivity and/or related requirements. Such monitoring may also aid the identification of non-security related operational issue. As well as possible issues that may lead to a security concern. So such audits need to be undertaken regularly, not just after a security incident has been experienced. You will also need formal processes defined on how to handle, escalate any potential security threat that is identified, etc.

Para monitorar ameaças internas na segurança da informação, métricas de feedback são cruciais. Elas fornecem informações valiosas sobre atividades suspeitas ou comportamento anormal dos usuários dentro da organização. Métricas como taxa de detecção de ameaças internas, tempo médio de detecção e resolução, e análise de padrões de acesso ajudam a identificar potenciais ameaças. Além disso, feedback constante entre equipes de segurança e TI é essencial para ajustar políticas de segurança, treinamentos e políticas de acesso, garantindo uma resposta mais eficaz às ameaças internas.

Another way ensure that insider threats are stopped and blocked is to turn 'on' outbound SSL /443 inspection. One must apply layer 7 analysis of outbound traffic. Over 75% of web traffic is 443 (encrypted traffic).

In monitoring insider threats through user feedback and sentiment: 1. Analyze Employee Sentiment: Regular assessment of employee feedback for signs of dissatisfaction or behavioral changes. 2. Open Feedback Channels: Facilitate easy reporting of concerns or suspicious activities. 3. Monitor Engagement Levels: Track participation in company activities as indicators of morale. 4. Detect Anomalies in Feedback: Identify unusual changes in feedback patterns. This approach proactively identifies potential threats by understanding employee concerns, aiding in maintaining a secure and positive work environment.

An employee perception survey can serve as a valuable tool to detect potential insider threats by gauging sentiments and uncovering disgruntlement. Questions about job satisfaction, work environment, and morale can reveal underlying issues. A decline in overall satisfaction or concerning responses may indicate dissatisfaction, increasing the risk of insider threats. Additionally, targeted questions about data access awareness and loyalty can pinpoint potential vulnerabilities. Regular surveys foster a proactive approach, allowing organizations to address employee concerns, enhance security awareness, and preemptively mitigate insider threat risks by addressing underlying issues before they escalate.

Establish channels for employees to report concerns or suspicious activities. Monitor feedback and sentiment to identify potential disgruntled employees or those at risk of becoming insider threats.

Leverage individual risk scoring and peer-to-peer ranking in information security to detect and mitigate risky users for data exfiltration or sabotage. Utilize behavioral analytics, access pattern assessments, and privileged user monitoring for comprehensive evaluation. Assess data transfers, endpoint security, and user training adherence. Incident history and automated alerts for high-risk individuals enhance detection. Regular risk score updates ensure adaptability. Peer-to-peer ranking adds crucial context, pinpointing outliers for closer scrutiny. These metrics not only identify threats but also prioritize attention and resources, focusing on the most critical and vulnerable users for proactive security measures and risk mitigation.

We believe each user in an organisation poses a risk, as their rights may grant them access to valuable information. When trust is abused, the impact varies. To address this, implementing a risk scoring system based on sensitivity of the information user can access is essential. In my AI tech startup that I founded, we assess information sensitivity and potential consequences, developing a comprehensive strategy to mitigate insider risks. This proactive approach helps organisation to identify high-risk users and prioritise security measures, enhancing the overall resilience against insider threats.

In the context of risk scoring and ranking for insider threat monitoring: 1. Risk Scoring Algorithms: Utilize algorithms to assign risk scores to user activities based on various parameters like access levels, activity patterns, and data sensitivity. 2. Behavioral Analysis: Incorporate behavioral analytics to detect deviations from normal patterns. 3. Threat Ranking: Prioritize risks by ranking them, focusing on the most critical threats first. 4. Dynamic Scoring: Continuously update risk scores based on ongoing user activities and behaviors. This strategy helps in efficiently identifying and addressing the most serious threats, ensuring robust security management.

In order to monitor insider threats, risk scoring and ranking are essential metrics that offer a quantitative evaluation of prospective security hazards. This group of metrics takes into account variables like the degree of system access, the frequency of suspicious activity, and the sensitivity of the accessible data. Organizations can better prioritize and address insider threats by putting grades and rankings on these variables. Scores that indicate a high danger may necessitate prompt inquiry or action. This method simplifies the process of identifying and mitigating possible threats, enabling security teams to deploy resources effectively and prioritize the most serious threats first.

A pontuação e classificação de risco são componentes fundamentais na segurança da informação. Elas envolvem a avaliação e atribuição de uma pontuação ou nível de risco a sistemas, ativos, ou atividades com base em sua vulnerabilidade e ameaça potencial. Essa abordagem permite priorizar a alocação de recursos de segurança, concentrando-se nos elementos de maior risco. Métricas como probabilidade de ocorrência, impacto financeiro e gravidade da ameaça são consideradas ao calcular a pontuação de risco. Essas pontuações ajudam as organizações a tomar decisões informadas e implementar medidas de segurança mais eficazes para mitigar ameaças identificadas.

Essential metrics for monitoring insider threats include unusual access patterns or unauthorized attempts to access sensitive data, which can indicate potential malicious activities. Monitoring for atypical data transfers or large file downloads, especially during off-hours, helps identify potential data exfiltration attempts. Additionally, tracking changes in user behavior, such as sudden increases in access requests or deviations from typical work patterns, can signal potential insider threats.

Custom detection rules to baseline download /upload size , inventory of trusted apps , scanning of dark web for leaked credentials of your domain are some good suggestions to detect insider threats

Insider threats are indicators of how well your organization is detecting, preventing, and responding to insider threats, which are malicious or accidental actions by authorized users that compromise the security of your data, systems, or assets. Some metrics are: -User entity behavioral analysis -What type of data is at risk, data visibility and access requirements align to the IAM & PAM -Proper shippable logs are in place to be used by SIEM -Enterprise risk management, scoring, apetite, mitigation aligned to the BCP -Incident detection, resolution time, false positives, DLP, response time -User awareness, policy driven software control mechanisms are in place -User feedback leads to effective ERM

Most security threats still arise within an organisation. Though most public attention is focused on the changing nature of the external, currently frequently email based, security threats. An organisation needs to educate their staff about both internal and external security threats, how to respond to them and report them. Particularly, as initially, users may not be able to distinguish between an internally and externally initiated security incident. One example. At a university a lecturer found a key logger installed onto his presentation system. As the lecturer had to log into the presentation system to give his lecturers. This key logger could have been used to breach his account, etc., if not discovered.

Monitor KPI and/or SLA and time to complete on leaver process. Automated or manual, it never needs to fail or be delayed, especially if an employee is released for disciplinary reasons. A fired disgruntled employee, especially, when emotional, can cause some expensive damage.