Overview#
Risk posed by malicious or negligent individuals within an organization. Managed through monitoring, access controls, behavioral analytics, and culture programs.
Core objectives#
- Establish shared definitions of Insider Threat for security, engineering, and leadership teams.
- Connect Insider Threat activities to measurable risk reduction and resilience goals.
- Provide onboarding notes so new team members can quickly understand how Insider Threat works here.
Implementation notes#
- Identify the primary owner for Insider Threat, the data sources involved, and the systems affected.
- Document the minimum viable process, tooling, and runbooks that keep Insider Threat healthy.
- Map Insider Threat practices to standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, NIST CSF, or CIS Controls.
Operational signals#
- Leading indicators: early warnings that Insider Threat might degrade (e.g., backlog growth, noisy alerts, or missed SLAs).
- Lagging indicators: realized impact that shows Insider Threat failed or needs investment (e.g., incidents, audit findings).
- Feedback loops: retrospectives and metrics reviews that tune Insider Threat continuously.
Related practices#
- Align Insider Threat with defense-in-depth planning, threat modeling, and disaster recovery tests.
- Communicate updates to stakeholders through concise briefs, dashboards, and internal FAQs.
- Pair Insider Threat improvements with tabletop exercises to validate expectations.