Insider Threat Program

Stop internal leaks and attacks with an insider threat program

With a growing number of today's cyber attacks originating inside organizations, more IT teams are considering an insider threat program to ensure cyber security.

A superior insider threat program must address the three specific types of insider threat:

• The Malicious Insider – an employee intent on damaging the organization, leaking data or stealing information and intellectual property.
• The Compromised Insider – a user whose email account or system credentials have been unknowingly hijacked through credential harvesting, phishing emails, social engineering or malware. These attacks are often initiated via email when a user clicks a malicious link, opens malicious email attachments or inadvertently divulges private information in a spear-phishing attack. The Compromised Insider is a critical component of advanced persistent threats, where attackers gain unauthorized access to a network and remain there undetected for days or weeks.
• The Careless Insider – a user who chooses to ignore or who does not understand the organization's security policies around sharing sensitive data through unsecured email, for example.

Since all three kinds of insider threat involve or center on human behavior, any successful insider threat program must address human risk first and foremost. That's exactly what you get with Mimecast.

What Is the Goal of an Insider Threat Program?

The purpose of an insider threat program is to identify, prevent, and respond to any insider incident before sensitive data is exposed or misused. Beyond detection, its goal is to:

• Strengthen insider risk management by continuously monitoring for suspicious activity.
• Balance privacy and protection, ensuring compliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA.
• Safeguard intellectual property, financial records, and customer information from potential threats.
• Support homeland security and sector-wide resilience by reducing both internal and external threat exposure.

At its core, an insider threat program helps organizations see risk from within—not just react to it.

Why Insider Risk Is Different from External Threats

External attacks often come from unknown sources. Insider threats, however, originate from valid credentials and trusted systems, making them harder to detect.

Unlike traditional perimeter defenses, insider threat prevention requires visibility into user behavior, access privileges, and data movement. This means insider threat analysts must look beyond firewalls and focus on understanding user intent through behavioral analytics and threat intelligence.

Building Insider Threat Awareness and Prevention

Awareness is the foundation of insider threat mitigation. To reduce insider risk, organizations must combine technology, training, and culture:

• Educate employees regularly. Security awareness programs teach staff how to recognize phishing attempts, safeguard login credentials, and report suspicious activity.
• Implement role-based access control. Limit access to sensitive systems and revoke credentials promptly when employees change roles or depart.
• Reinforce accountability. Clear insider threat policies set expectations and outline how insider incidents are investigated.
• Encourage open communication. Employees who understand the “why” behind cybersecurity rules are less likely to ignore them.

Continuous training builds a culture of vigilance—one that treats insider threat prevention as part of everyday operations, not just an IT issue.

Key Components of an Effective Insider Threat Program

A robust insider threat management strategy includes people, process, and technology:

• Dedicated team: Security, HR, legal, and compliance should collaborate with executive sponsors to oversee insider risk management.
• Behavioral monitoring: Use AI-powered analytics to detect anomalies in email, file movement, and cloud activity.
• Data protection tools: Deploy data loss prevention (DLP) solutions to stop leaks involving sensitive information.
• Incident response framework: Clearly define how to contain, investigate, and report insider incidents.
• Metrics and improvement: Regularly measure incident response times, detection accuracy, and employee awareness levels.

These elements create a closed-loop system that detects potential threats early, reduces damage, and continuously improves security posture.

An insider threat program from Mimecast

Mimecast provides a comprehensive suite of cloud-based solutions for email security, archiving, and insider risk management. Managed via a single pane of glass, Mimecast's human risk management platform helps to simplify email risk management, protect data, and educate employees.

Mimecast Incydr is a comprehensive insider threat solution that detects, prevents, and responds to risky user behavior. It uses built-in response controls to automatically correct mistakes, stop unacceptable activity, and quickly contain potential incidents. Incydr is purpose-built to prevent leaks of source code, customer data, and other sensitive information across email, collaboration platforms, and shadow AI tools.

By monitoring, detecting and remediating email-borne security threats, Mimecast's insider threat program successfully neutralizes attacks and careless behavior by employees.

Benefits of Mimecast's insider threat program

With an insider threat program powered by Mimecast's cloud-based services, you can:

• Automate insider threat detection to prevent leaks, ransomware attacks, impersonation fraud and other attacks targeting or perpetrated by insiders.
• Automatically remove internal emails determined to contain threats.
• Reduce the risk and impact of a security breach, preventing it from spreading throughout the organization.
• Prevent malicious or inadvertent leaks from damaging the organization's reputation.
• Manage your insider threat program from a single administrative console.

Conclusion

Insider risk isn’t going away—it’s growing. Whether caused by malicious insiders or human error, insider incidents can cost millions and damage trust. A modern insider threat program gives organizations the visibility, awareness, and control to protect their people and their data from within.

Learn more about how Mimecast can help you detect insider risks, protect sensitive information, and build a culture of security awareness that keeps your organization one step ahead of every potential threat.