Introduction

In June 2011, a former Citigroup executive allegedly stole more than $19 million from Citi and its customers1. In 2015, a former JPMorgan Chase employee was arrested for stealing customer data and attempting to sell it for a huge sum of money. In another incident, criminals gained access to a USB drive with the personal details of more than 13,000 Barclays Bank customers

These are not isolated incidents. Statistics reveal that the fear of fraud is constant – more from the people inside the organization than outside.

All organizations, irrespective of their size, get affected by frauds. However, considering banks and other financial institutions manage a large volume of sensitive customer information, a data breach can lead to dire consequences.

The banking and financial services industry is highly at-risk for targeted insider attacks. Due to the private nature of these crimes, the bulk of them goes unreported. Moreover, many financial institutions have difficulty acknowledging - much less detecting - the risks that lead to these incidents

• • Who are the threatful insiders?
• • What are the risks?
• • Best practices to defeat insider threats
• • Government measures

Malicious insiders - Who purposefully seek to benefit themselves at the organization’s expense by stealing valuable data, publicly exposing sensitive information to attract attention, or committing fraud for financial gain

Negligent or error-prone insiders - Who can carelessly create a vulnerability, which can be exploited by attackers directly or make themselves personally vulnerable to attack and co-option

• • Can bypass physical and technical security measures like firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and electronic building access systems
• • Aware of the loopholes like exploitable technical flaws in networks or systems

• There were 338 cases of fraud in 2018 in the banking and financial industry
• • The median loss is $110000

Security awareness training for employees- All employees need to understand the need for control. As employees are the first line of defense from insider threats, they need to be educated about the security policies and technical controls and be signed for the reason of their existence. Periodic security awareness training will underline the importance of such measures and ensure enforcement across the organization.

Enforce separation of duties - Dividing responsibilities of critical functions among different employees limit the possibility of fraud by a single employee. Employees should have access only to those resources that they need to do their jobs.

Audit employee’s online activities - Logging all online activities, periodic monitoring, and auditing can help an organization to discover and investigate suspicious insider actions before more severe consequences ensue.

Be cautious with privileged users - System administrators and privileged users have many rights for logging and monitoring employees. But they need to be monitored closely too to ensure they do not cause a data leak. For example, system administrators can use logic bombs or install malicious code stealthily on the network. Organizations need to monitor their activities to ensure early detection of such threats

Implement strict account management policies and password - If the passwords are weak and compromised, it is easier for insiders to dodge the manual and automated mechanisms. Therefore, passwords and account management policies need to be strong to ensure they can’t be easily hacked.

Apart from online activities, organizations should also monitor the disruptive behavior of the employees. All employees must be sensitized against suspicious behavior of a co-worker so that they can report such conduct immediately to the management.

Deactivate account access after an employee leaves the organization - It is essential to disable the employee’s access points to the organization’s networks, systems, applications, and data once s/he leaves the organization

Save data - To prove and fight an insider attack, it is crucial that an organization monitor and save all the data generated from employee activities. These data will act as evidence should there be any need to prove insider data threat.

inDefend is a one-stop solution to help protect your data from all kinds of insider threats within your organization. It allows you to monitor your employees' behavioral patterns and pinpoint potential avenues for data exfiltration. This solution is built to achieve complete transparency over all the digital assets residing within your organization. With our unified solution, you can quickly tackle various kinds of security issues related to data exfiltration.

Insider Threat Management - Get a complete user behavior analysis to protect your sensitive data from being compromised by employees by monitoring their activities and communication habits.

Real-time Alerts - Get real-time incident alerts for any data exfiltration activity that takes place within the organization

Accurate Analytics - Get detailed cyber intelligence reports which highlight the critical and sensitive data leakage scenarios with granular visibility into team dynamics and organizational ecosystem.

Superior Control - Block specific channels or devices in case any sensitive data exfiltration is detected.

Enforced Encryption - Secure multiple endpoints with implemented encryption on external storage devices to restrict the use of sensitive information or files

Implementing a better security system is the need of the hour for all organizations. Our unified solution inDefend can secure your organization from data exfiltration. inDefend is designed to prevent data leakage via various communication channels and proactively keep you informed of any sensitive data exfiltration attempt on-the-fly. So, start securing your organization against data exfiltration with inDefend.

inDefend is a one-stop solution to help protect your data from all kinds of insider threats within your organization. It allows you to monitor your employees' behavioral patterns and pinpoint potential avenues for data exfiltration. This solution is built to achieve complete transparency over all the digital assets residing within your organization. With our unified solution, you can quickly tackle various kinds of security issues related to data exfiltration. It offers a proactive approach to the organization as follows:

Insider Threat Management - Get a complete user behavior analysis to protect your sensitive data from being compromised by employees by monitoring their activities and communication habits.

Real-time Alerts - Get real-time incident alerts for any data exfiltration activity that takes place within the organization.

Accurate Analytics - Get detailed cyber intelligence reports which highlight the critical and sensitive data leakage scenarios with granular visibility into team dynamics and organizational ecosystem.

Superior Control - Block specific channels or devices in case any sensitive data exfiltration is detected.

Enforced Encryption - Secure multiple endpoints with implemented encryption on external storage devices to restrict the use of sensitive information or files.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) - Extract text from images and process them further to detect the presence of sensitive content like keywords, regular expressions, or file types with OCR.

Implementing a better security system is the need of the hour for all organizations. Our unified solution inDefend can secure your organization from data exfiltration. inDefend is designed to prevent data leakage via various communication channels and proactively keep you informed of any sensitive data exfiltration attempt on-the-fly. So, start securing your organization against data exfiltration with inDefend.