Evaluating the Increasing Risk of Insider Threats

The discovery of information leaks of sensitive data has prompted lawmakers to amend policies and oversight protocols that are kept in place to protect corporate IP (intellectual property) and the nation’s most classified data. Leaks of sensitive information have considerably affected our national security and that of corporate IP.

Access to classified data by individuals and personnel granted administrative privileges is likely to pose a considerable threat. Whether the risk presented was done by accident, deliberately, or by implicitly abusing power over it through data theft, deletion, or modification, insider threats expose the weakness of an organization’s security network leaving it open for additional infiltration unless the issue is immediately rectified.

In 2013 the most highly publicized and recorded insider threat occurred when Edward Snowden, a contractor for the government, managed to steal documents containing highly-confidential NSA surveillance from his workplace computer. The stolen secrets were then promptly leaked to a select group of press. This incident further cemented the belief that humans remain the weakest in a confluence involving people, systems, and tech.

The question on everybody’s minds is whether the Snowden insider threat could have been preventable in the first place. Is there a reason why agencies have failed at closely surveying and safeguarding information and matters that are valuable? It is for this specific purpose that we have designed an innovative threat detection tool. This free-to-use solution was created to afford users an automated system that audits and manages all transfers involving removable storage devices.

Insider Threats in the Workplace: Facing Intrinsic Constraints

Software systems are not naturally set up in an automated process that perfectly records every shift in data that occurs during the duplication and transfer of restricted files onto a removable device like thumb drives, mobile phones, and external hard drives, to name some examples.

Data Loss Prevention products, or DLPs, are generally implemented in large institutions that are able to afford the sizable licensing fees that come with its use. Numerous regulated bodies in similar industries need this kind of info for the proper determination of an operating system’s limit. Organizations like USCYBERCOM and DoD monitor these thresholds as well as restrict the size of data that can be moved based on standardized requirements set by these departments.

Setup preventive measures to combat insider threats and data loss with our free automated system

SecureStrux pioneered a unique system to combat insider threats by implementing DataStrux designed for the Windows Operating System. Our solution gathers any unusual file characteristics that are present during a data transfer via removable media.

An event log on Windows monitors and records every single file that is relocated and copied. Data gathered by our utility system is then encrypted before being sent simultaneously to logging collectors and the Security Information and Event Management systems for additional observation and critical analysis.

Free from the constraints of complex configuration, our tool is generally used to prevent data loss and as a fail-safe measure in the occurrence of data transfer auditing. This insider threat solution listens and compiles data that is transferred onto removable media devices. With the aid of the data transfer auditing function, agencies can now effortlessly survey any file or files taken from their computers.

This protocol manages to provide extensive assistance in discouraging the theft of an industry’s most guarded secrets. 

Implementing automation can effectively reduce the strain felt by many organizations that are severely lacking in workforce while continuously providing useful data that is disseminated efficiently to the governing bodies.

Experience a stronger security structure that is enhanced by programmed solutions that detect immediate security concerns combined with a rapid response ability to help further minimize the Risk of Insider Threats and provide preventive measures for any future illegal data breaches. Don’t wait to act until it is too late. Even the simplest data protection system works as a good starting point to build a fortified data protection strategy.