INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security
POWERED BY
More than one in three enterprises
say cloud apps are the most
vulnerable to insider threat
/////////////////////////////
A
ccording to the results of a new
survey by Securonix, the cloud not
only makes enterprises vulnerable
to insider attacks, it makes those attacks
even more difficult to detect. In the 2019
Insider Threat Report, 39% of cybersecurity
professionals identified cloud storage and
file sharing apps as the most vulnerable to
insider attacks.
In addition, 56% believe detecting
insider attacks has become significantly
to somewhat harder since migrating to
the cloud. Despite this risk, only 40%
of organisations say they monitor user
behaviour across their cloud footprint.
The report details the types of insider
threats, motivations for insider attacks, which
data is the most vulnerable and identifies
which insiders pose the biggest security risk
to an organisation – 59% say it’s privileged
IT users or admins, followed by contractors/
70
INTELLIGENTCIO
service providers/temporary workers at 52%.
Other key findings of the report include:
• 21% of organisations have experienced
more than five insider attacks in the past
12 months
• 70% of organisations confirm insider
attacks have become more frequent in
the past 12 months
• 68% of organisations feel moderately to
extremely vulnerable to insider attacks
• 56% of organisations say their
monitoring, detecting and responding to
insider threats is only somewhat effective
or worse
• The top motivations for insider threat were
fraud, monetary gain and IP theft, followed
by corporate sabotage and espionage
“Six years ago, the Snowden incident sent a
wake-up call to enterprises and government
agencies across the globe that risky insiders
are a threat hidden in plain sight, but the
cloud has exponentially increased the insider
threat attack surface,” said Shareth Ben,
Insider Threat SME at Securonix.
“The benefits of moving to the cloud are
obvious, but along with that comes an
increased need for security. It’s not enough
to guard the network perimeter because
the perimeter has become more porous.
Organisations need to take a close look
inside, decide what’s most important to
them and put in place an insider threat
programme that incorporates people,
processes and technology.”
The 2019 Insider Threat Report reveals
challenges facing organisations, how IT
and security professionals are dealing with
risky insiders, and how organisations are
preparing to better protect their critical
data and IT infrastructure. The report
is based on a survey of more than 300
cybersecurity professionals. n
www.intelligentcio.com