Subscribe

Avoid the insider threat


Johannesburg, 26 May 2015

No company, regardless of its size or its security budget, can afford to be lackadaisical about cyber-attacks. The vast majority of companies have either suffered a breach, or suffered a breach and are unaware of it. No one is safe; no one can afford not to be concerned.

John Mc Loughlin, MD of J2 Software, says breaches will happen, in spite of the best defences, and businesses need to be prepared. "The first step is understanding that many breaches occur from the inside. Research conducted by Dtex found that enterprises, even those with sophisticated security in place, are surprised by the holes in their security when looked at from the perspective of user activity. Findings included the use of hacking tools, misconfigured Web filters, and employees actively bypassing security measures."

He explains that Dtex's SystemSkan has been developed to provide total user visibility to stop insider cyber threats, using Advanced Human Analytics to provide insight into user behaviour and predict suspicious behavioural changes.

"This solution, which automatically identifies sudden changes in behaviour that indicate high-risk activity, builds a user-level profile of activity using self-updating algorithms. This provides the levels of visibility required to pinpoint malicious insiders as well as those individuals opening the company up to accidental data loss."

According to Mc Loughlin, SystemSkan is used by corporations worldwide to augment their SIEM and DLP solutions, as it provides this additional insight lacking in many traditional security products. In addition, it's lightweight and highly scalable for rapid deployment in environments of all sizes.

"The Dtex research found criminal activity, deliberate theft of highly sensitive intellectual property, collusion of employees with external actors, and accidental exposure to attacks. This is the new security frontier, where cyber criminals are using insiders to gain access to companies, and where unaware employees are opening businesses up to accidental loss that could be as detrimental as a targeted attack. Organisations can no longer afford to focus purely on the perimeter and the endpoint, but need to start looking internally too. That's why SystemSkan is growing in popularity around the world."

Dtex has developed SystemSkan to be used in compliance with the strictest privacy laws in the world, and because it focuses on the user context, it allows companies to see the insider threat before it becomes a breach. "Insider threat activity is impossible to catch if a company relies only on traditional methods such as DLP and SIEM. Because SystemSkan offers complete visibility - even for users in remote locations - it provides complete peace of mind," says Mc Loughlin.

J2 Software will be demonstrating the power of SystemSkan at the upcoming ITWeb Security Summit, of which it is a Bronze Sponsor. Visit stand 24 to see SystemSkan in action.

Share