Detecting and Mitigating Insider Threats: Strengthening SaaS Security for Effective Risk Management

Insider Risk Management and SaaS Security: Protecting Organizations from Internal Threats

Introduction

Insider risk management (IRM) plays a crucial role in today’s cybersecurity landscape. Organizations must address potential threats posed by individuals within their ranks who have access to sensitive data, systems, or resources. This includes both malicious insiders who intentionally exploit vulnerabilities and negligent insiders who inadvertently compromise security through careless actions. To effectively manage insider risks, organizations must adopt a comprehensive approach that encompasses technical, procedural, and human elements.

The Role of Technological Measures

Technological measures such as access controls, encryption, and monitoring systems are vital tools in detecting and preventing unauthorized access or suspicious activities by insiders. However, as the world becomes increasingly cloud-based and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications gain popularity, it is crucial for security practitioners to view IRM through the SaaS security lens.

SSPM: Ensuring Safe SaaS Usage

Security posture management (SSPM) solutions focus on ensuring organizations use SaaS applications safely. SaaS applications have become the preferred and decentralized way of working, but they also require some level of access to company data. Many employees are willing to grant SaaS applications access to sensitive data without involving IT or security teams. SSPM provides SaaS security protection, allowing employees to continue using the SaaS applications they need while reducing risks to the organization.

Benefits of SSPM in Insider Threat Management

An SSPM solution helps organizations establish control over both negligent and malicious insiders in several ways:

1. Monitoring Risky SaaS Applications: SSPM solutions continuously monitor an organization’s SaaS environment for new applications and analyze each application’s security level. This helps security and IT teams address shadow IT problems, gain visibility into SaaS application usage, and understand the nature of these applications. Automated remediation paths within SaaS products also save valuable time for IT administrators and security teams.

2. Revoking Access to Risky SaaS Applications: Employees often use risky SaaS applications without realizing the potential threats they pose. An SSPM solution can alert or revoke access when a negligent insider tries to use a risky SaaS application to access sensitive company data. For example, in a recent security survey, employees in 84% of the companies surveyed used an average of 3.5 risky SaaS applications. An SSPM solution helps organizations identify these risky applications and take action to prevent unauthorized access.

3. Stopping Data Theft: Disgruntled employees with insider knowledge and access to sensitive information pose a significant risk to the theft of company data. An SSPM solution can alert security teams whenever employees attempt to download or forward data from business-critical applications such as Google Drive or Dropbox. Additionally, SSPM solutions enable companies to offboard departing employees securely by revoking their access to all SaaS applications, ensuring compliance with data protection standards.

Conclusion

Insider risk management is a critical component of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. By leveraging SSPM technologies, organizations can effectively mitigate some of the most common and critical insider threats caused by malicious and negligent insiders. These solutions provide a systematic and automated approach to ensure employees using SaaS applications are following security procedures and that policies are effectively implemented, consistently enforced, and continuously improved.

Advice: Organizations should consider implementing SSPM solutions to address insider risks effectively. These solutions provide valuable insights and controls over SaaS application usage, helping reduce the likelihood of data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage caused by insider threats. By combining technical measures, such as access controls and encryption, with SSPM solutions, organizations can create a robust defense against both external and internal threats.

Disclaimer: The information and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, Yoav Kalati, and do not reflect the views of The New York Times or its employees. The New York Times does not endorse any products mentioned in this article.