Gartner Research

Strategies for Midsize Enterprises to Mitigate Insider Risk

Published: 19 April 2023

Summary

One of the biggest threats to any business is the one that walks through the front door every day. Midsize enterprise (MSE) CIOs must prioritize the security risk represented by employees, contractors and integrated third-party partners as part of a comprehensive security program.

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Overview

Key Findings
  • End users in MSEs often demonstrate poor judgment specific to cybersecurity.

  • MSEs often lack the capability to effectively monitor the risks associated with employees, contractors or third-party partners.

  • Limitations in security capabilities and resources make incidents attributed to insider activity difficult to predict, identify and contain.

  • Data breaches caused by abuse of access often take months or years to detect data breaches caused by abuse of access.

Recommendations

To combat the insider risk, the MSE CIOs must:

  • Implement the “rule of three” to mitigate risk while effectively using limited security resources.

  • Establish an enterprisewide culture of security by developing an insider threat security team

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Analysts:

Paul Furtado

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