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The Trust Trap: Why Employees Turn Malicious and How Causal AI Predicts the Breaking Point
Oct 25, 2025
Insider threats are not just technical breaches but fundamentally human failures, where employees exploit their legitimate access due to a complex mix of financial stress, revenge, and unmet expectations. This episode explores how personality traits like narcissism and organizational shortcomings create a "Trust Trap," allowing behavioral precursors to escalate unnoticed into full-blown attacks. We examine the shift toward proactive defense, where integrating User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) and Probabilistic Graphical Networks (PGNs) with HR data provides the necessary causal, human-centric monitoring required for mitigation. • https://insidethreatmatrix.securitycareers.help • https://zerotrustciso.com • https://teamrisk.securitycareers.help • https://remotework.securitycareers.help • https://insiderrisk.securitycareers.help
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0:00
Welcome to the deep dive. Today we are wrestling with um perhaps the most fundamental and let's be honest quite
0:06
terrifying cyber security reality. The idea that the greatest threat often already has the key. We're talking about
0:12
the insider threat. That's exactly right. You know, for those listening who might be more focused on external threats,
0:18
you know, the hackers, the zero days, it's easy to miss this crucial definition.
0:23
The National Protected Security Authority, the NPSA, they're very clear. Mhm. The insider isn't some uh external
0:30
phantom trying to get through the firewall. It's a current or maybe a former employee, could be a contractor,
0:36
even a trusted third bloody supplier. Right. Someone you let in. Precisely. Sure. And the critical point is this
0:43
individual already possesses legitimate access to your systems, your data, and their position to cause well severe or
0:50
material harm. They're inside sometimes with high level privileges. Okay, let's really unpack that distinction because it's fundamental.
0:56
Our mission today really is to move way beyond that simplistic image of, you know, a disgruntled employee just
1:02
smashing a keyboard, right? Not just pure rage. Exactly. We want to go deep into the complex, often quite insidious mix of
1:09
behavioral, psychological, and technical factors that actually drive this malicious insider activity. And we're
1:16
going to focus particularly on uh the really highstakes world of financial services. And that focus on financial
1:23
services is well, it's entirely justified. The stakes there are just astronomical. I mean, insider incidents
1:29
aren't just operationally disruptive, though they certainly are that. But the real damage, it's financial and
1:35
reputational. The costs just spiral direct financial loss, huge regulatory fines. They can honestly a
1:41
business unit, and maybe worst of all, the complete shattering of public trust. And when we talk about cost, we're not
1:47
talking small change. The research we looked at cited figures from what was it 2020 where the average cost per insider
1:53
incident hit something like 11.5 million. Staggering. And that's the average.
1:59
That's the average. We see case studies where the total losses maybe involving modifying data, deleting critical
2:05
information or outright theft stored as high as uh $691 million in one single
2:12
event. It's not just a data breach. It can be genuinely existential for the company involved. Absolutely.
2:18
And when you quantify that kind of impact, you realize, look, this needs a really holistic approach, which is why
2:24
we gathered such diverse material for this discussion. Our insights today, they're drawn from quite a stack. Academic reviews focusing
2:32
specifically on the UK financial services sector, intelligence briefs from the FBI and CISA, very practical
2:38
stuff there. And also those foundational behavioral and technical studies from CERT and the US Secret Service,
2:44
particularly looking at banking and finance. M we're trying to blend the psychological with the procedural, the human with the technical.
2:49
And it's so clear as we step into this complex area that organizations desperately need integrated
2:55
professionals, people who can speak the language of psychology and HR and advanced technical controls. You need
3:01
experts who get that the human mind is arguably the most critical firewall. Mh. So for those of you listening who
3:08
feel drawn to this vital area where blending that behavioral understanding
3:13
with technical knowhow is absolutely key, we do want to mention our partner www.securitycareers.help.
3:20
Securing organizations from the inside really requires a unique and frankly crucial skill set and that's a great
3:27
place to explore opportunities to make a genuine difference. There really is a specialized field. Okay, so let's start at the beginning.
3:33
motivation. The why. Probably the single most important finding, and this cut across
3:39
every piece of intelligence we reviewed, is that malicious insider threats are very rarely, if ever, spontaneous.
3:46
Almost never just happen on the spur of the moment. Exactly. They are almost always planned, sometimes meticulously planned in
3:52
advance. And that planning phase, that's got to be the crucial element for prevention, right? Because if it's planned, it
3:58
implies there are well observable precursors, things you could potentially spot. That's the hope. Yes.
4:04
So if someone's planning sabotage or a massive data theft, they have to take steps. Steps that might be visible. But
4:11
what triggers that planning? You mentioned it often starts with external pressure, specifically financial
4:16
distress. That's very often the primary external stressor. Yes. We frequently see um
4:23
a kind of rapid escalation of financial problems. Could be overwhelming debt, maybe bankruptcy looming. Sometimes it's
4:29
someone trying to maintain an extravagant lifestyle that's just way beyond their salary, keeping up appearances,
4:34
right? Or maybe sudden major unexpected expenses, huge medical bills, things like that. These pressures create this
4:41
well awesome desperate need for money. And suddenly exploiting that legitimate access they have starts to look like an
4:48
option. A terrible option, but an option. But, and this is important, the research is really careful to stress
4:54
that just having financial difficulty that alone doesn't create an insider threat. I mean, most people facing debt
5:00
don't suddenly turn malicious. Absolutely not. That's a critical distinction. So, what is it then? What turns that
5:05
financial stress into actual malicious action. There has to be some kind of psychological pivot point, doesn't
5:11
there? Precisely. And that pivot point is very often what the researchers call the unmet expectation. It's a concept that
5:18
sounds simple but is uh devastatingly effective in explaining this. Okay. Unmet expectation. What does that
5:25
mean exactly? It's basically an unsatisfied assumption. An assumption that some organizational action or event maybe a
5:31
promotion they felt they deserve a promised bonus even just job security will happen or maybe won't happen. And
5:37
when the employees internal story, their narrative about their own value or their future in the company is completely
5:43
violated by reality, like being passed over for that promotion. Exactly. That's when disgruntlement can
5:49
rapidly escalate sometimes towards seeking revenge or retaliation. This seems like the perfect place to
5:54
bring in that um classic case study. I know it's fictionalized, but it's based on real patterns. The eye symbol case
6:00
study. Ian Archer, it perfectly illustrates this, right? the psychological fallout escalating into
6:05
actual technical sabotage. Tell us about Archer. Right. Archer's story is well, it's textbook in many ways. He was one of the
6:12
company's original computer specialists. Talented, initially very loyal, and over about four years, he basically became
6:19
the sole cisadmin. He built the company's core missionritical software from scratch.
6:25
So he saw himself as indispensable. Quite rightly perhaps. He absolutely did. His expectation was
6:31
straightforward. as the company grew, he'd naturally step into that senior leadership role, overseeing the very
6:37
infrastructure he created. It made sense to him. But that's not what happened. No, I Asmble grew fast, really fast,
6:44
and they brought in experienced external administrators, people with, you know, formal credentials, management
6:49
backgrounds, and Archer, he was passed over for the lead system administrator job. Ouch. That expectation of recognition,
6:56
status, control, just completely unmet. Utterly unmet. And the report details this immediate shift in his behavior. He
7:03
became severely disgruntled. Started exhibiting aggressive, resentful behavior toward his new managers, which
7:09
unsurprisingly eventually led to his termination. And the termination was the final trigger. It was. But he was ready. He had already
7:16
prepared. On the very day he was fired, actually, while he was being escorted out of the building, he triggered a
7:21
logic bomb, something he'd secretly installed weeks before. Wow. It detonated about a week later and
7:28
it systematically deleted every single missionritical program he had ever developed for that company. The damage
7:35
was well immense. His motivation was pure vengeance fueled entirely by that
7:40
deep burning sense of betrayal linked to his professional expectation. That's a chilling example and it really
7:46
shows how the perceived slight can lead to proportional or even disproportionate damage. Now moving beyond that specific
7:53
trigger, the research also talks about something called personal predisposition. Certain characteristics historically
8:00
linked to this kind of behavior. What traits did they observe specifically in say technical staff who went rogue?
8:06
Yeah, this is interesting. For those in high trust technical roles, researchers identified about six specific psychological characteristics that seem
8:13
to act as um internal amplifiers when stress hits. Okay. Like what? Well, first, often a
8:19
history of personal or social frustrations, a pattern of feeling misunderstood or slighted. Second,
8:25
sometimes an unhealthy dependency on computers where their validation comes solely from controlling systems, not people. Third, a high degree of what
8:33
they call ethical flexibility. Basically, they can rationalize breaking rules or policies quite easily. Makes sense.
8:38
Then fourth, reduced loyalty to the institution itself. Fifth, a really
8:43
profound sense of entitlement, specifically regarding their access or their role. And finally, often a
8:50
striking lack of empathy, difficulty understanding or caring about the impact of their actions on the organization or,
8:56
you know, the victims. Wow, that combination sounds potent. An entitled person, low empathy, high
9:01
ethical flexibility. You add overwhelming debt in a denied promotion, and suddenly the psychological barrier
9:07
to acting maliciously just crumbles. Absolutely. The predisposition kind of sets the stage psychologically, but it's
9:13
important to note motivation isn't always just about direct theft or sabotage. We also see other more complex
9:19
drivers for disclosure of information, right? The sources mention motivations that might on the surface look a bit
9:26
like whistleblowing, even if the intent isn't purely benevolent. That's a really key distinction. We
9:31
definitely see strong ideological motivations. cases where the insider genuinely believes their morals or
9:37
ethics compel them to disclose sensitive information maybe to the public or the media. And this ties directly into something
9:43
called ethical retaliation theory. Basically, in the insider's mind, they feel morally justified in seeking
9:50
revenge because they perceive some massive organizational injustice like discrimination, maybe systemic fraud,
9:57
unethical behavior as the initial wrong that justifies their actions. So they frame it as justice
10:02
in their mind. Yes. And we also see sometimes just the desire for notoriety. Seeking fame or attention can be a huge
10:09
driver for a really visible disclosure. Sometimes even overriding immediate financial gain. Okay, let's shift gears slightly and
10:16
apply a statistical lens specifically to banking and finance using that data from
10:21
the CERT secret service study. When we picture an insider threat in finance, the stereotype is often that highle
10:28
cisadmin, right? Does the data actually back that up? Historically, no. Actually, and this is a really crucial
10:35
finding for financial institutions. The study showed that perpetrators in banking and finance often did not hold
10:40
technical positions. Really? Yeah. The majority of fraud cases, data theft incidents carried out by
10:46
individuals in nontechnical roles, customer service, loan officers, analysts leveraging the legitimate
10:51
access they had to customer accounts or proprietary data. So, not the IT gurus necessarily,
10:57
not usually for fraud or theft. Technical staff were definitively identified as the perpetrators, mainly
11:02
in the cases involving outright IT sabotage, like Archer setting a logic bomb or someone wiping servers, which
11:08
confirms, you know, you might need technical expertise for destruction, but for theft or fraud. You just need
11:13
legitimate access in the intent. And another stereotype busted. We're not talking about shadowy figures working
11:20
late at night in dimly lit server rooms. Far from it, actually. Most of these incidents were executed right there at
11:26
the workplace during normal business hours. Again, relying entirely on their established legitimate access. The
11:33
threat often looks exactly like everyone else sitting in the office just doing their job until they're not
11:39
precisely. Which brings us squarely to this operational reality, the one that
11:44
really has to inform all security strategy. One source even called it the first commandment of insider threat
11:50
mitigation. Human factors are paramount. The first commandment, why paramount? I
11:55
mean, surely the latest AI monitoring software, the sophisticated tech, surely that trumps the human element
12:01
eventually. Well, no, it doesn't. Because even the best AI relies on the integrity of the
12:06
data it's fed and the promptness of the response, both of which are dictated by humans. The research consistently finds
12:12
that the vast majority of failures in prevention, detection, and mitigation are ultimately due to human behaviors,
12:19
not some fundamental technological weakness. We're talking about critical delays in reporting concerning behavior.
12:25
Someone sees something but doesn't say something. Exactly. Or successful social engineering manipulations or simply
12:32
supervisors trusting an employee too much and failing to audit their access or activity. The security tech stack
12:38
might be perfect on paper, but if a manager chooses not to report an anomaly because, you know, oh that's just Dave,
12:44
he wouldn't do anything wrong. The system fails. That really underscores the need for a cultural shift, doesn't it? The UK
12:51
financial services review you mentioned identified five emerging research themes that security teams really need to
12:57
balance. It suggests a mature program can't just be tech heavy. It has to be properly integrated.
13:03
Absolutely integrated. And those themes really show you the breath required. First, behavioral studies. Understanding
13:09
those psychological triggers we talked about like unmet expectations. Yeah. Second, information security behaviors.
13:15
That's about compliance, policy adherence, training effectiveness, for the day-to-day stuff, right? Third, technical controls. That's
13:23
your UEEB, your data loss prevention systems. Fourth, overall insider threat strategies, developing policies,
13:29
management structures, response plans. And fifth, regulation, ensuring everything complies with legal
13:36
frameworks like GDPR. A program focused only on the tech is just fundamentally incomplete. It misses too much.
13:42
Okay, so let's dive deeper into those behavioral studies. If human factors are paramount, what should managers,
13:47
security teams, even colleagues be looking for? What are those observable warning signs, the precursors that might
13:53
pop up during that planning phase? Right. First, and maybe most obviously,
13:59
grievances and disgruntlement. You're looking for observable signs of dissatisfaction, frequent conflicts with
14:05
management or colleagues, maybe aggressive behavior, or just constant vocal resentment about company
14:10
decisions. It's the psychological pressure starting to manifest outwardly. Makes sense. What's second?
14:16
Second, signs of vulnerability. This is where personal life issues start bleeding into the workplace. Things like
14:21
noticeable isolation or withdrawal from team activities. Maybe observe issues with substance abuse or even a pattern
14:28
of working highly unusual or out of hours shifts. Now, that last one can be tricky. Sometimes it's dedication, but
14:35
sometimes it's an attempt to avoid supervision while preparing something malicious. Right? Context is key there. Third,
14:41
third, unexpected lifestyle changes. This is the classic one. Evidence of a sudden unexpected lavish lifestyle or
14:48
someone living visibly beyond their known means. Maybe they suddenly show up in a luxury car. Talk about a high-cost
14:54
vacation that just doesn't square with their salary. The money has to come from somewhere. Exactly. For And this one honestly is
15:00
staggering information sharing. In something like 61% of the malicious cases examined, individuals from more
15:07
than one area of the insider's life think a friend, a family member, maybe a colleague actually knew about the
15:12
insider's intentions or their plans beforehand. 61% that plan wasn't some perfectly kept
15:18
secret then. Not at all. In the majority of cases, someone else knew something. And fifth, violation of policy. This is often the
15:25
technical precursor you see before the main event. things like unauthorized access attempts, trying to get into
15:31
systems they shouldn't, maybe unauthorized copying or downloading of large amounts of data, or just flagrant
15:37
repeated violations of existing IT and data management policies. Hold on, that 61% figure, that demands a
15:43
bit more thought. If over half of these malicious insiders tell someone about their plans, why are organizations still
15:48
getting caught flatfooted so often, why isn't that information getting to the security team or HR? Ah, that is the
15:55
absolute critical dilemma of the human factor, isn't it? Yeah. The information often doesn't surface for a few key reasons.
16:02
The person who was told might feel this intense maybe misplaced sense of loyalty
16:07
to the insider. Don't want to betray a friend, right? Or peer pressure within a team to stay silent. Or, and this is a huge one,
16:15
simple fear of retaliation. Maybe the organization's official whistleblowing channel is seen as ineffective or worse,
16:22
dangerous. If I report my friend and either nothing happens or somehow they find out it was me, well, my career
16:29
could be over. Yeah, that's our real concern. It really highlights that intervention has to be cultural. It relies on having
16:35
reporting mechanisms that are not just accessible, but genuinely trustworthy and perceived as safe.
16:40
But, okay, actively monitoring for these behaviors is inherently tricky, isn't it? Especially with all the ethical and
16:45
legal implications, particularly around mental health, you can't just assume that because someone seems disgruntled,
16:51
they're automatically a threat. Absolutely not. That's a dangerous assumption. Any behavioral monitoring
16:58
must adhere to strict guidelines. It has to be purposeful. You need a legitimate reason. It has to be proportionate. You
17:04
can't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. And it has to be strictly lawful especially under privacy regimes like
17:10
GDPR and considering UK employment law which rightly emphasizes accommodating
17:15
mental health issues. So overaggressive monitoring could be illegal or harassment easily and the sources really highlight
17:22
this difficult public health dilemma that organizations have to navigate carefully which is the critical point is most mental health
17:30
conditions are emphatically not indicators of an insider threat. Not at all. However, if the stigma around
17:36
discussing financial stress or anxiety or depression is too high within the company culture, people won't seek help.
17:42
Exactly. Employees will be deterred from using things like employee assistance programs, EAPs, even if they desperately
17:48
need support. And that inaction paradoxically can worsen their condition and that in a very small minority of
17:54
cases that could increase their vulnerability to potentially becoming an insider threat down the line. It's a
18:00
delicate balance. Organizations really need to prioritize offering support over immediately jumping to sanctions.
18:07
Support first always. Ideally, yes. Okay. So, given that the human factor is paramount, also ethically complex, maybe
18:15
even legally risky to police too aggressively, we absolutely have to lean heavily on robust technological
18:21
safeguards as well. So, let's pivot back to the technical landscape. What's the
18:26
malicious insider's biggest advantage when they decide to exploit technology? And what's the primary type of tool
18:32
designed to catch them? Well, the insider's advantage is quite simply their legitimate access. It's
18:37
pure and simple. They don't need to hack through a firewall. They've already got a key card, password. They walk right through the front door digitally
18:43
speaking. They often already know exactly where the valuable stuff is, the critical IP, the sensitive customer
18:49
data. They know where the systems might be weak, how the existing controls are configured, and that knowledge allows
18:54
them to bypass many traditional defenses that are really designed for external attackers.
19:00
Right. Defenses looking outwards, not inwards. Exactly. So to counter this specific
19:05
threat, we rely heavily on tools like user and entity behavior analytics, usually shortened to UEIE.
19:12
UEEBA. That seems to be the technical heart of modern insider threat programs. Can you break down how it goes beyond
19:18
just simple rule-based alerts like Bob access the finance drive? Yeah, UEIEBA is essential precisely
19:24
because it deals with complexity and nuance. Its core function isn't just flagging known bad behaviors based on
19:30
fixed rules. Instead, it aims to establish a sophisticated baseline of what constitutes normal behavior for
19:36
every single user and even system entities on the network. Okay, a baseline of normal, right? Then it uses machine learning
19:42
algorithms, often quite complex ones, to identify anomalous behavior. It looks
19:47
for subtle outliers, nonlinear patterns that a human analyst just staring at logs or a simple firewall rule would
19:54
almost certainly miss. Give you an example. Okay, sure. Let's say you have a system administrator who normally accesses
20:00
certain sensitive customer databases, but only during business hours, maybe only on Tuesday afternoons for routine
20:07
maintenance. UEe learns this pattern. Uhhuh. Now, if that same administrator suddenly starts accessing terabytes of
20:14
that same data at, say, 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday, and maybe they're doing it from an IP address nobody recognizes,
20:20
the UEE system flags that as highly anomalous, even if the access itself was technically permitted by their
20:26
credentials. Got it. So, it's not just what they accessed, but the whole context, the when, the how, the where, compared to
20:32
their own established normal pattern. Exactly. Right. It's all about deviations from the norm. And to build that behavioral profile, these systems
20:39
have to crunch just immense volumes of activity logs. We're talking about basically every digital footprint an
20:45
employee leaves. Like what kind of logs? Oh, everything. Log on activity times, locations, success failure, device used,
20:52
email usage, who are they emailing externally? Are there sudden spikes in attachment sizes or volume? HTTP
20:59
activity, what websites are they visiting? File activity, huge one. What files are they opening, copying, writing
21:04
to, deleting? How many? and device usage like suddenly plugging in an unauthorized USB drive all of it gets
21:10
ingested. Wow, that's a lot of data. I remember the research also mentioned some really cutting edge almost futuristic ideas for
21:18
verifying identity things like using biometrics by monitoring how someone moves their mouse cursor. Is that stuff
21:24
actually practical yet? It's fascinating research. Definitely there are experimental studies looking into that. Researchers have found some
21:30
potential links. The idea being that someone trying to conceal malicious activity or maybe even just telling a
21:35
lie might exhibit measurably different mouse cursor movement patterns perhaps due to stress or increased cognitive
21:41
load. Huh. Micro movements revealing intent potentially. But the practical hurdles right now are
21:47
pretty significant. First, you need a massive amount of very specific user data to reliably train the AI model for
21:55
that kind of analysis in a live operational setting. That's hard to get. And the privacy implications. Exactly.
22:02
Second, and probably more importantly, the ethical and privacy issues around monitoring something that granular,
22:08
literally how someone moves their hand are immense. It's highly unlikely these methods would be usable in heavily
22:14
regulated environments like financial services anytime soon. Not without huge policy shifts and probably explicit
22:21
informed employee consent, which might be hard to get. Okay, so we stick with UEIEBA analyzing
22:26
logs for now. But even the best UEA system can be defeated if the organization has some fundamental
22:32
failures and its technical process is right. Let's come back to that access path dilemma. That was the core reason Ian Archer in our case study was able to
22:38
succeed with his sabotage after being fired. What exactly defines an access path and why is forgetting about one so
22:44
incredibly dangerous? Right? An access path is basically just a sequence. A sequence of one or more
22:50
access points could be login, system credentials, special privilege rights that when used together lead to a
22:57
critical system or sensitive data. It's like a chain of keys. Sort of. Yeah. And the inherent danger,
23:03
especially in organizations that go through rapid growths or process changes or mergers and acquisitions, is that
23:09
critical access paths often get forgotten or they get shared informally and never revoked or they simply never
23:15
get audited properly. They fall through the cracks. Let's trace Archer's path again just to illustrate this failure
23:21
clearly because the company genuinely thought they were secure after they terminated him. They absolutely did. They believed they
23:28
were secure because they followed the standard procedure. They disabled his known primary user account, his main
23:34
login standard. But Urcher still managed to launch his attack after termination because he
23:39
exploited two forgotten, essentially unknown access paths. Path number one,
23:45
he knew a shared password. a password for his former co-orker, James Allen. Apparently, Allan had shared it months
23:51
earlier for some minor project collaboration and then promptly forgot he'd ever shared it. The account was still active. Allan still worked there.
23:58
And crucially, it still had the necessary privileges for Archer to plant his logic bomb. Wow. So, a simple breakdown in that
24:05
basic no shared accounts policy, which sounds simple, but let's be honest, gets circumvented all the time for
24:11
convenience. All the time. Exactly. And path number two was even more insidious. Archer had secretly planted a dormant backdoor
24:18
account, an account with maximum administrator privileges right on the main machinery server months before he
24:24
was even fired. A secret key he made himself. Precisely. Since he was the original architect of the system, that account
24:30
was completely unknown to the current management team, the new administrators who replaced him or any IT auditors. So
24:38
the failure points here were multiple obsolete account management practices, a lack of diligence during that rapid
24:44
growth phase fundamentally relying on trust instead of rigorous process. The lesson seems crystal clear. Then the
24:52
technical failure wasn't just the logic bomb itself. It was the organization's complete failure of memory regarding who
24:57
had access to what and how. How do technical teams effectively mitigate this specific access path problem? Well,
25:04
mitigation demands relentless continuous tracking and diligent management of every single access path. It's not a
25:10
one-off task. It means ongoing thorough account management, verifying every new account created, tracking every shared
25:17
account like Allens and ideally eliminating them, and crucially immediately decommissioning or properly
25:22
archiving old accounts and privileges the moment they're no longer needed. Proactive house cleaning
25:27
constantly. And it connects back to UAE2. If precursor technical activity is detected by UEO, like an unusual attempt
25:34
by Archer before he was fired to maybe create a new suspicious user profile,
25:39
the technical team needs the processes in place to rapidly trace that activity, identify the potential unknown path
25:45
being created, and disable it before any termination or disciplinary action even begins.
25:51
That sounds like a significant operational commitment. This rigorous approach to technical control,
25:56
implementing and maintaining sophisticated security programs, UEIBA, CMA, DLP, robust access management, it
26:03
requires more than just good technology. It needs real strategic investment and deep buyin from leadership, doesn't it?
26:09
Oh, absolutely. It's a foundational element of any organization's overall security maturity. And yes, it often
26:14
represents a massive capital expenditure decision and an ongoing operational cost. So for those technology leaders,
26:20
the CISOs, the executives listening who are focused on building those integrated riskmanagement solutions, making those
26:27
strategic program decisions, we should mention our partner www.seomarketplace.com.
26:33
It's a resource designed specifically for aligning those crucial technical investments with your overall business
26:39
risk posture. A very useful resource for that level of strategic planning. Definitely. Okay, so
26:44
moving from the purely technical back towards the strategic and organizational level, CISA offers a pretty standard,
26:50
sensible four-step approach for effective insider threat mitigation. Kind of ties everything together. It's
26:56
one, define the threat clearly. Two, detect and identify potential issues. Three, assess the risk accurately. And
27:03
four, manage the threat through controls and response. Define, detect, assess, manage seems
27:08
logical. It is. But underlying all those procedural steps, the foundation they rest on is the organizational environment itself.
27:14
The culture, right? This brings us back full circle to that cultural imperative you mentioned. The research seems
27:20
unanimous. Technical controls are absolutely necessary, but they're just not sufficient on their own without the
27:26
right environment supporting them. Precisely. We really need to stress what one source called the sixth commandment.
27:31
Maybe a bit dramatic, but it makes the point. Leadership and organizational culture at every level are absolutely
27:39
key. The sixth commandment. Yeah. A positive cyber security culture. One where security is seen as everyone's
27:45
responsibility and support is available is proven not only to reduce both insider and external security threats,
27:51
but also interestingly to concurrently improve employee satisfaction and engagement.
27:57
That's a crucial link. Happy employees are safer employees in a way. There's definitely a correlation. The
28:02
analysis consistently shows that if employees feel their contribution is genuinely valued, if their input is
28:09
sought and listened to, they are vastly more likely to actually buy into the security culture. They'll follow
28:15
policies. They'll report concerns willingly rather than seeing security rules as just some external burdensome
28:22
imposition from management that they need to find ways around. Okay. If culture is that central, who
28:28
holds the most sway? Who's the biggest influence on shaping that day-to-day culture? Many listeners might
28:35
immediately think, "Oh, it's the CISO or maybe the CEO setting the tone from the top."
28:40
That assumption, while understandable, is often incorrect. According to the research we reviewed for this deep dive,
28:45
the single biggest influence on the daily culture experienced by most employees. It's their immediate
28:50
frontline supervisor or manager. Really, not the execs. Think about it. They're the ones with the most frequent contact. They assign
28:56
daily work. They provide performance feedback. They manage stress levels within the team. They handle minor grievances. They are the face of the
29:03
organization for most staff. That makes sense. Therefore, organizations need to seriously prioritize people skills.
29:11
Things like active listening, demonstrating emotional intelligence, genuine mentoring, building trust. They
29:18
need to value these skills at least as much as if not more than purely technical skills when promoting people
29:24
into supervisory role. So promote the good listeners, not just the best coders essentially. Yes. Because that shift
29:31
helps directly mitigate some of those psychological drivers we discussed earlier like unmet expectations. A good
29:37
supervisor can provide effective human intervention before things escalate. That completely reframes the whole
29:44
preventative framework focusing it much more on middle management. Okay, let's try to outline the key proactive
29:49
mitigation measures recommended especially for those highstakes entities like in the financial services sector.
29:55
Let's synthesize these human and technical needs, right? We can group the essential measures pulling from the sources maybe
30:00
by theme. First, behavioral measures. Organizations absolutely must invest
30:06
seriously in creating that positive, supportive cyber security culture we talked about. Practically, this means
30:11
establishing free, easily accessible employee assistance programs, EAPs. And
30:16
these EAPs need to be comprehensive covering mental health, general
30:22
well-being, and crucially offering financial counseling and support addressing that key stressor directly.
30:27
Exactly. And alongside that, offering confidential, truly effective speak up or whistleblowing services. You need a
30:33
trusted channel to capture that potential 61% of known intentions we discussed earlier. People need to feel
30:39
safe reporting concerns. Got it. What's next? Second, information security behavior. This is about making sure you have
30:45
robust, regular, and mandatory education and awareness programs. Not just tickbox exercises, but genuinely engaging
30:52
training. Also setting crystal clear policies, acceptable use, data privacy, consequences for violations, and
30:58
crucially being transparent about internal security monitoring. Transparency again. Yes, employees who
31:04
understand what data is being collected about their activity and why it's necessary for security are generally
31:10
much more likely to accept it and comply with policy rather than feeling spied upon unjustly.
31:16
Right. Transparency builds trust which reduces that temptation to bypass controls because you feel unfairly
31:23
targeted. Absolutely. Okay. Third theme, insider thread strategies. Here the foundational
31:29
technical rule always must be adopting the principle of lease privilege access.
31:34
Only give access that's strictly needed for the job. Not a bite more. If an employee can do
31:40
their job perfectly well without access to a critical system or sensitive data set, they must not have that access.
31:45
Period. Beyond that baseline, organizations need to conduct regular insider threat landscape reviews and
31:50
maturity assessments, understand their specific risks, and finally consider more sophisticated segmentation of the
31:56
workforce. What does that mean, segmentation? It means applying additional perhaps stricter controls to specific
32:02
high-risisk populations. For example, maybe implementing mandatory gardening leave for departing
32:08
employees in critical roles or removing external email access for certain groups or enhanced monitoring for those with
32:15
access to the most sensitive data. Tailoring controls to risk makes sense. Okay. All this preparation,
32:21
all these policies and controls, they all lead up to that final often most critical human process, the termination
32:28
or even just a demotion procedure. This seems like the moment of maximum risk, right? The potential catalyst for that
32:34
logic bomb like archers to actually be activated. It is absolutely the point of maximum execution risk. Organizations must have
32:41
a clear, well doumented and regularly practiced process for handling departures, especially in voluntary
32:47
ones. The absolute core rule, the one I assemble completely failed on, is that all access paths, all privileges, shared
32:54
accounts, system authorizations linked to that individual must be fully disabled or updated before the person is actually notified of their demotion or
33:00
termination. Access off first. Access off first. The ideal process usually involves the security IT team
33:07
disabling all technical access, then updating role-based access levels across all relevant systems, and only then does
33:15
HR get involved to actually deliver the news to the individual. Sequence matters enormously here.
33:20
But what if the organization hasn't done that diligent tracking of access paths we talked about? What if they suspect
33:26
there might be unknown paths like Archer's secret backdoor account? Then, frankly, they face a terrifying
33:32
dilemma. If an organization has been lax in tracking access paths, if their account management is messy, they may
33:39
literally find that the very moment they schedule that termination meeting, it's already too late because the insider anticipates it.
33:45
Exactly. A disgruntled insider who suspects termination is imminent might execute their planned attack before the
33:51
HR meeting even begins. The organization has to realize if the underlying technical access controls aren't
33:57
rigorous and up-to-date, then the human termination process, no matter how well-intentioned, is inherently flawed
34:03
and risky. That's a sobering thought. What about HR's role throughout this whole life
34:08
cycle? They're often seen primarily as the administrators of the termination process, but clearly they're critical
34:15
much earlier in the prevention stage, too. Oh, HR is absolutely crucial across the entire spectrum. In the prevention
34:22
phase, they play a key role in defining job responsibilities. Clearly, they use performance reviews not just to
34:28
evaluate, but to properly set and sometimes adjust employee expectations,
34:34
directly mitigating that risk of unmet expectations. We keep coming back to managing expectations proactively,
34:40
right? Furthermore, HR should be the champion for those positive intervention strategies like promoting the EAPs. The
34:47
research strongly warns against organizations resorting to immediate sanctions or punishments just because
34:52
behavioral precursors are observed. Punishing an employee for showing signs of stress or disgruntlement might
34:58
actually backfire spectacularly. How so? It could just increase their resentment, confirm their negative view of the
35:04
organization, and potentially push them directly towards deciding on a malicious act. Intervention, support,
35:11
understanding that should always be the first resort, not immediate sanction. Intervention, not sanction. Got it.
35:18
Finally, let's touch on vetting. We know initial background screening is critical when hiring. But the sources seem to
35:24
stress that it's fundamentally insufficient on its own for addressing the long-term insider threat. Why is
35:30
that? That is perhaps one of the most sobering findings in all the research. The evidence is overwhelming. Most
35:36
individuals who become spies or malicious insiders actually enter their employment with zero malicious intent
35:42
whatsoever. They were good hires initially. often yes there are good employees who later in their tenure developed severe
35:48
problems maybe those financial needs we discussed perhaps family crises health issues or maybe escalating grievances
35:54
with management that festered over time they changed therefore continuous vetting or at least periodic
36:00
resscreening is essential throughout the entire employment life cycle not just at the point of hire it's not a oneanddone check
36:07
not at all and for organizations specifically in the UK financial services sector the sources highlight a
36:13
powerful full proactive deterrent they can use leveraging relevant law enforcement powers including the ability
36:19
to proactively load details of confirmed internal fraud cases onto the national
36:24
CF's database. Ah the fraud prevention database. How does that help as a deterrent?
36:30
Well, knowing that confirmed internal fraud will be shared across the industry potentially impacting future employment
36:36
prospects in the sector acts as a significant check. It raises the personal stakes considerably for someone
36:42
contemplating abusing their access. It's not just an internal company matter anymore. It has wider, longer term
36:48
consequences. Right. It adds another layer of consequence beyond just losing the current job. Exactly. #outro.
36:54
Okay. We have covered a huge amount of ground today. Touching on two immense and really inseparable dimensions of the
36:59
insider threat problem. On one side, we've got the human imperative. Really understanding those complex
37:05
psychological triggers from unmet expectations fueled by career disappointments to severe financial
37:10
drivers and recognizing the necessary response involves fostering a positive supportive culture crucially championed
37:17
by frontline supervisors equipped with genuine people skills. And then on the other side there's the
37:23
inescapable technical and strategic necessity implementing advanced monitoring tools like UEBA. Yes, but
37:29
also strictly adopting that principle of lease privilege access and critically rigorously managing every single access
37:36
path, especially during that high-risk termination sequence. As we've said, there really is no single silver bullet
37:42
here. It's an ongoing integrated effort that demands continuous investment, attention, and adaptation.
37:48
Before we wrap up, one thing that really stood out from our discussion was how frequently these insiders rely on access
37:54
paths that are basically forgotten or simply unknown to current management. Those shared accounts that were never
37:59
revoked, legacy back doors from previous admins, non-decommissioned privileges
38:04
from old projects. These really are like ticking technical time bombs hidden within the system.
38:10
They absolutely are. So perhaps here's a provocative thought for you, our listener, to take away and consider
38:15
about your own environment. If your organization tends to rely more on trust and convenience rather than on
38:22
rigorous, consistent technical process and audit, how many of those forgotten paths might exist right now sitting
38:29
dormant inside your systems just waiting? Waiting for some precipitating event, maybe a big round
38:34
of layoffs, a critical promotion denial that hits someone hard, or a sudden personal financial crisis, waiting for
38:40
that trigger to potentially turn a previously trusted employee into a truly catastrophic insider threat. That is a
38:46
sobering thought to end on. Indeed, a truly comprehensive security strategy needs both the people and the technology
38:53
elements working seamlessly together, constantly reinforcing each other. We really want to thank our partners for
38:59
helping us explore this complex landscape today. For those listening who are perhaps drawn to build a career
39:04
focusing on that human side of security intervention and culture, do visit
39:09
www.securitycareers.help. And for the technology leaders, the CISOs, the strategists out there seeking
39:15
those integrated risk management solutions looking at technical control implementation and strategic program
39:20
building, check out the resources available at www.seomarketplace.com.
39:25
Please join us next time for another deep dive.
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#Finance
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