How RASP Can Help Detect and Block Insider Threats in Real Time
Contrary to what you might expect, external threats may not be your biggest security concern. While the external threat makes more of a splash and is certainly responsible for data theft, loss of business, and other serious issues, internal threats are often more detrimental to your organization’s operations.
Since internal threats already have access to your network, they bypass the various controls and safeguards outside of your network. Typical cybersecurity tools don’t work on insider threats because the threat comes from inside the network and already has access to the organization’s data. However, by combining RASP solutions and enforcing a zero-trust policy, your company can detect and stop insider threats before they create major problems.
Insider Threat Detection is Difficult
Although most organizations know they need to protect themselves from external threats, not all companies recognize the dangers of insider threats. This is not entirely surprising. External attackers need to exploit vulnerabilities to gain access to an organization’s network. In contrast, the insider already has access.
This means that insider threats are much more challenging to detect. The user already has access, and if there are not sufficient access controls and network segmentation, it’s pretty easy for the user to do harm. There are a few reasons detecting insiders is more difficult than detecting external threats:
- Unregulated access. Not all organizations separate the data that each employee or department should be able to access. So, if a user decides to go looking for data he shouldn’t need, there’s nothing stopping him (and no way for you to know about it).
- Insufficient monitoring. If your network is not being monitored consistently, you won’t know about any unusual behavior by your users. Minor incursions will go unchecked, so when a major incident occurs, it appears to come out of nowhere. Additionally, without monitoring, you will have a tough time figuring out which user is the problem.
- User trust. Trusting your employees to only access necessary information and to follow all privacy and security policies exactly tends to backfire. This may be due to lack of training, poor policy communication, or malice. Zero-trust policies are a better way to go.
It’s worth noting that the majority of insider threats are not malicious, which makes them difficult to see coming. Most of these threats are a direct result of human error. However, they can be prevented by implementing RASP, which will monitor applications for unusual or undesirable activity.
The Role of RASP for Insider Threat Detection
Although something like a WAF would be useful for protecting your network from external threats, a different solution is best for internal threats. RASP provides real-time behavioral monitoring for applications, which means it detects suspicious activity based on an application rather than incoming requests.
Applications are designed to run in particular ways, so when they don’t behave as intended, RASPs catch that. If there is a pattern of unusual activity, even if it isn’t a known attack pattern, RASPs can flag the threat. Additionally, they can stop attacks and block incoming malware by stopping executions from continuing.
Because insider threats originate within your network, they don’t raise the red flags that unauthorized access would. Insiders already have access to the applications, so protective measures must be implemented at the application layer to catch them. So, RASPs, which are integrated into the application, are much more effective for stopping them than other tools. RASPs are sensitive to context, so even when a legitimate user is authorized to access data, a RASP will detect subtle irregularities in the app’s behavior.
Implementing Defense in Depth
RASP solutions are an important part of your defense strategy. They prevent and block insider threats, whether those threats are intentional or human error. However, even the best RASP can’t catch everything. To limit the number of potential threats that your RASP has to field, be sure to implement zero-trust policies in your organization.
Historically, it has been the policy of many organizations to trust their own users. Each user can access the company network and any data necessary to do his job throughout the day (and, technically, any data he doesn’t need). While this has kept things simple for onboarding and daily operations, it’s been a challenge for security. According to Ponemon, the cost of insider threats to organizations now exceeds $16 million.
To address this issue, zero-trust policies restrict access to data. Only authenticated and verified users are able to access organizational data (and if access controls are in place, that group may shrink to only a few authorized users). This is an essential containment method for insider threats. Many threats, whether careless errors or malicious attackers, can be limited by authentication requirements and restrictions on lateral movement within a network. Those that slip through can be snuffed out by a RASP monitoring the application.
Zero-trust policies ensure that your risk of attack due to insider threat decreases significantly. By limiting user access and monitoring application activity, your organization can contain employee carelessness without sacrificing productivity. Ideally, you will also improve training on privacy policies and security best practices within your organization. Once combined with an effective RASP solution, these tactics eliminate most insider threats.