When you think of threats to your organization’s safety and security, you might envision burglars breaking into your facility, natural disasters that destroy entire buildings at a swipe, or coordinated attacks on your IT system’s stored data. But have you ever thought about the possibility that danger might take the form of an “inside job?” Sadly, insider threats can and do occur, so the more you understand about the nature of these threats to your technology, the more effectively you can guard your precious data against them.

What do we mean when we talk about insider threats? First, we need to define the term “insider.” Insiders can include anyone who has any degree of pre-arranged access to your ITT system. Current team members, former employees, and developers or analysts may all meet this definition -- but so can third parties such as vendors or contractors.

IBM defines the two main categories of IT inside threats as malicious and inadvertent. Malicious threats usually involve specific goals such as corporate sabotage or espionage, fraud for purposes of financial gain, and theft of intellectual property. Inadvertent threats come from employees who make innocent but potentially disastrous errors such as falling prey to phishing attempts, failing to perform scheduled backups or security patches, and other unfortunate types of human error that let the bad guys run rampant.

The good news is that you can take steps to combat insider threats to your IT system. Our Austin IT business support specialists at Gravity Systems can evaluate vulnerabilities in your current setup, help you educate your workforce about smarter, safer security practices, and help you add extra permissions and other protective shields against data theft (including tools that can help you watch for abnormal or unauthorized data access). Contact us today, and feel more confident about tomorrow!