This blog post will outline and collate the findings of recent research from various sources on the problem of insider threats and attacks on business security.
What Are Insider Threats?
Often, but not always, carried out as cyber attacks, insider threats are some of the fastest-growing security concerns the corporate world faces. Coming from within the business, perhaps from an employee, a business partner, a contractor, or anyone else who has access to a company’s databases, they are hard to mitigate.
Insider threats can result from malicious attacks involving intentional breaches, leaks, and thefts from disgruntled employees, and business rivals to accidental attacks – often due to negligence, naivety, or otherwise.
This data has been collated from the statistics presented up to 2023.
How big is the risk?
- According to recent research by Gurucul, 74% of organisations have said that insider attacks are becoming an increasingly frequent threat to them.
- 74% also feel as though they are at least moderately and, in some cases, severely vulnerable to insider attacks.
- Insider attacks have grown by over 47% in the last two years.
- It takes an average of 197 days for a business to identify a breach and another 77 to recover.
While a high volume of insider threats are recorded, many are caught and dealt with before they can turn into an attack. However:
- 34% of businesses globally suffer from an insider attack every year.
- Of these, 44% of attacks come from malware
- 24% of these attacks are a result of accidental errors.
- 32% are from unsatisfied employees.
Who is at risk?
- In the last year, over 50% of businesses have experienced an insider threat.
- 8% of companies have experienced over 20 insider threats.
- The healthcare, financial, and technology sectors are the most susceptible industries to insider threats.
Who poses the risk?
Of insider attacks carried out by humans (and not malware issues):
- 56% of insider threats are caused by employees.
- 33% are caused by contractors.
- 23% are caused by partners.
Furthermore, 15% of insider threats come from business rivals and might be through partnerships with malicious intent or from the use of blackmail against employees.
What are the Risks?
- 2 in every 3 insider threat incidents happen as a result of negligence, falling within the “accidental” insider threat category.
- Negligence ranges from choosing weak passwords to leaving devices unlocked and unattended.
- Of these, 67% of all accidental threat incidents are caused by phishing.
- 94% of viruses come from emails.
- In 2022, 23% of breaches resulted from weak passwords.
- Malicious insider attacks consist of intentional data breaches, theft of devices, data, and supplies, and deliberate leaking of information to rivals.
Insider threats are on the rise and are projected to continue rising by at least 5% annually over the next few years. They are one of the main threats that businesses need to be mindful of, and ready to combat, mitigate, and prevent.