Inside Out Versus Outside In View

From information leaks to stolen personal information, there is no doubt that insider attacks have become a serious cybersecurity concern. As with all cybersecurity practices, whether external or internal, it is critical to identify incidents before they occur rather than analyze events after the damage has been done. That’s why it’s important to not only implement solid perimeter protection for external intrusions, but also shield systems from internal threats.

Organizations of all sizes have been facing the consequences of insider-caused breaches for decades. However, as cybercriminals have become more and more sophisticated and our world gets increasingly digitized, instances of insider security transgressions, whether deliberate or accidental, have grown exponentially. In fact, some of the most consequential incidents of insider threats have occurred just over the last few months, affecting individuals from multibillion-dollar corporations to government agencies.

Insider threats can come from just about every angle. Employees not only have the most intimate access to sensitive data, but they understand how it can best be used and transmitted. Despite what you may think, malicious insiders are hardly the only threat. From losing a laptop to sharing confidential information, even the most dedicated employees are at risk of mishandling data, sharing passwords, or unwittingly providing an outsider with backend access to critical systems thereby threatening the safety of sensitive information.

However, insider threats can be notoriously difficult to identify and correct. Often, the issues take place off-network, at the user’s endpoint, and cannot be identified by standard cybersecurity tools. Moreover, organizations neglect to track data usage or monitor activity within their own operations, making insider incidents that much harder to prevent.

While cyber threats continue to loom, organizations can take steps to create a defensive and, most importantly, offensive security posture. The approach of monitoring endpoint activity – at the user, device, and data level – can enable organizations to collect and correlate information about actions that indicate risky precursor behavior and in turn initiate an appropriate countermeasure.

Take steps to protect

The attack surface is large, and every user, partner, and vendor threatens it every time they log in – whether on accident or not. With innerActiv, organizations can approach their defense from the inside out versus the outside in. Powerful analytics look across user behavior and data movement on endpoints, networks, in the cloud, and on-premises, to provide complete visibility, detection, prevention, and response to potential insider threat situations. Let’s take a closer look. 

Secure data in use, at rest and in motion

With data moving faster than ever, organizations face the constant challenge of keeping up with where their sensitive files reside, how many copies of the data exist, and when highly sensitive information is being stored insecurely. Traditional DLP tools look at “unauthorized individuals or entities” however by design employees are authorized users.

innerActiv’s highly customizable framework of rules can be applied in layers by individual, department, custom group, or the entire organization to analyze the access and handling of sensitive data, proprietary files, PII, and account information at the endpoint. Coupled with advanced threat detection in email, mobile, social, and employee collaboration tools, innerActiv keeps sensitive data safe across all channels, on and off the network.

Protect your hybrid and remote workforce

Concerned about your employee productivity and security? You’re not alone. At home, people are more likely to use their own devices and work off network which creates new risks to an organization.  And with employee access to more intellectual property from more channels, devices, and tools, the risks of data loss and insider-led incidents continue to grow.

With innerActiv, gain insight on how employees, contractors, and departments spend their time and resources including any and all activity occurring, while connected or disconnected, and even if other security measures have been bypassed. Deep trend and risk analysis of behavior can identify unusual patterns or changes in workflow of a user like abnormal file access patterns, discussion of proprietary terms, or inappropriate or high-risk keyword use in places like chat, emails, or documents.  Get alerted about suspicious and restricted activities in real-time, allowing you to react quickly to protect your critical data.

Safeguard systems, applications, and endpoints

Ensuring a proactive defense and investigative readiness against security anomalies is crucial, and if you don’t have all the information, you cannot truly understand the problem or the solution. innerActiv maintains coverage and continuous inspection from the endpoint, on-and-off the network, and in the cloud in order to maintain a full 360 view of potential threat.

In real-time, innerActiv identifies abnormal system resource utilization and/or potential noncompliance concerns such as file tampering, unauthorized server access, remote access, or data removal. Dashboard views and reports allow security teams to drill down into incidents and gain instant knowledge of “who, what, when, why and where” actually happened to triage and contain an incident before data leakage or damage occurs. 

Is your organization prepared?

External threats to an organization and its data can seem formidable enough on their own, but internal threats are another absolutely essential part of the cybersecurity equation. By anticipating versus reacting to shifts or suspicious activity, organizations can reduce the time and cost of investigations and overall operational impact, since it is far more costly to remediate an insider threat after it occurs than to prevent it.

Recently noted as Best Solution for Insider Threat, innerActiv is helping organizations of all sizes, industries, and geographies around the world proactively mitigate risk and protect trade secrets and customer data from leakage or theft. innerActiv insider risk intelligence platform utilizes powerful analytics to understand what insider behaviors or actions represent risks and by correlating data across security tools, your organization can trend user behavior and activity for a full 360 view of potential threat.

Want to ready your organization with resiliency? innerActiv can help your organization protect from within.