Assessment of Insider Threats in Computer Networks and Mitigation Techniques

They have brought insider threats to computer networks under the limelight, where malicious actors possess legitimate access to sensitive information and systems. The danger can come from employees, ex-employees, contractors, or business partners and cause serious financial and reputational loss. Insider threat assessment is the process of identifying risks and vulnerabilities in your organization's Network Security. Such aspects include tracking and logging user patterns, access rights, and movements of data to identify any strange or malicious behavior. It also provides background checks of the employees and regular risk assessments to track the history of the individuals at risk. Organizations can use access control, privilege management, and monitoring tools to reduce insider threats. Access control prevents, as much as possible, the user from taking action that could cause harm and gives them only the access they need to do their jobs. Privilege management is the process of allowing only authorized user's access to sensitive data and systems. Tracking user activity and alerting to suspicious activities, monitoring tools offer detection of abuse or attack when it is still an opportunity for mitigation.