Access to Physical Spaces

Routine reviews of user accounts and their associated privileges and permissions should be conducted to identify overly-permissive accounts, or accounts that are no longer required to be active.

Offering mental health support and conflict resolution programs to
help employees identify and report manipulative behavior in the
workplace

A structured program, including a helpline or other reporting mechanism, designed to assist employees who feel vulnerable, whether due to personal issues, coercion, or extortion. This process allows employees to confidentially raise concerns with trusted teams, such as Human Resources or other qualified professionals. In some cases, it may be appropriate to discreetly share this information with trusted individuals within the Insider Risk Management Program to help prevent and detect insider threats while also providing necessary support to the employee.

Mandatory security awareness training for employees can help them to recognize a range of cyber attacks that they can play a part in preventing or detecting. This can include topics such as phishing, social engineering, and data classification, amongst others.

An Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is a set of rules outlining acceptable and unacceptable uses of an organization's computer systems and network resources. It acts as a deterrent to prevent employees from conducting illegitimate activities by clearly defining expectations, reinforcing legal and ethical standards, establishing accountability, specifying consequences for violations, and promoting education and awareness about security risks.

Provide a process for all staff members to report concerning and/or suspicious behaviour to the organization's security team for review. An internal whistleblowing process should take into consideration the privacy of the reporter and the subject(s) of the report, with specific regard to safeguarding against reprisals against reporters.

Commercial security software may include native anti-tampering protections that prevent attempts to interfere with its operations, such as deleting or renaming required files.

Access to specific areas of a site should be restricted to only authorized personnel, through the use of controls such as locked doors, mantraps, and gates requiring an ID badge.

Background checks should be conducted to ensure whether the information provided by the candidate during the interview process is truthful. This could include employment and educational reference checks, and a criminal background check. Background checks can highlight specific risks, such as a potential for extortion.

Certain infringements can be prevented by prohibiting certain devices from being brought on-site.

An agent capable of Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is a software agent installed on organization endpoints (such as laptops and servers) that (at a minimum) records the Operating System, application, and network activity on an endpoint.

Typically EDR operates in an agent/server model, where agents automatically send logs to a server, where the server correlates those logs based on a rule set. This rule set is then used to surface potential security-related events, that can then be analyzed.

An EDR agent typically also has some form of remote shell capability, where a user of the EDR platform can gain a remote shell session on a target endpoint, for incident response purposes. An EDR agent will typically have the ability to remotely isolate an endpoint, where all network activity is blocked on the target endpoint (other than the network activity required for the EDR platform to operate).

An agent capable of User Activity Monitoring (UAM) is a software agent installed on organization endpoints (such as laptops); typically, User Activity Monitoring agents are only deployed on endpoints where a human user Is expected to conduct the activity.

The User Activity Monitoring agent will typically record Operating System, application, and network activity occurring on an endpoint, with a focus on activity that is or can be conducted by a human user. The purpose of this monitoring is to identify undesirable and/or malicious activity being conducted by a human user (in this context, an Insider Threat).

Typical User Activity Monitoring platforms operate in an agent/server model where activity logs are sent to a server for automatic correlation against a rule set. This rule set is used to surface activity that may represent Insider Threat related activity such as capturing screenshots, copying data, compressing files or installing risky software.

Other platforms providing related functionality are frequently referred to as User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) platforms.

An agent capable of User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) is a software agent installed on organizational endpoints (such as laptops). Typically, User Activity Monitoring agents are only deployed on endpoints where a human user is expected to conduct the activity.

The User Behaviour Analytics agent will typically record Operating System, application, and network activity occurring on an endpoint, focusing on activity that is or can be conducted by a human user. Typically, User Behaviour Analytics platforms operate in an agent/server model where activity logs are sent to a server for automatic analysis. In the case of User Behaviour Analytics, this analysis will typically be conducted against a baseline that has previously been established.

A User Behaviour Analytic platform will typically conduct a period of ‘baselining’ when the platform is first installed. This baselining period establishes the normal behavior parameters for an organization’s users, which are used to train a Machine Learning (ML) model. This ML model can then be later used to automatically identify activity that is predicted to be an anomaly, which is hoped to surface user behavior that is undesirable, risky, or malicious.

Other platforms providing related functionality are frequently referred to as User Activity Monitoring (UAM) platforms.

CCTV can be used to observe activity within or around a site. This control can help to detect preparation or infringement activities and record it to a video file.

A Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution refers to policies, technologies, and controls that prevent the accidental and/or deliberate loss, misuse, or theft of data by members of an organization. Typically, DLP technology would take the form of a software agent installed on organization endpoints (such as laptops and servers).

Typical DLP technology will alert on the potential loss of data, or activity which might indicate the potential for data loss. A DLP technology may also provide automated responses to prevent data loss on a device.

Commercial security software may have the ability to generate alerts when suspected tampering is detected, such as interacting with the process in memory, or attempting to access files related to its operation.

A tamper seal can be used to protect against tampering or unauthorized access of an object. Tamper seals can provide visual evidence if an object has been opened or attempted to be opened.

Deploy User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) solutions designed for cloud environments to monitor and analyze the behavior of users, applications, network devices, servers, and other non-human resources. UEBA systems track normal behavior patterns and detect anomalies that could indicate potential insider events. For instance, they can identify when a user or entity is downloading unusually large volumes of data, accessing an excessive number of resources, or engaging in data transfers that deviate from their usual behavior.