Why Every Organization Should Revisit Insider Risk Programs
- Oct 20
- 3 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
The most damaging security incidents rarely start with an external threat. They start with an insider — sometimes malicious, often careless — who already has access.
The results can be catastrophic. Google’s self-driving car unit lost 9.7 gigabytes of intellectual property when a lead engineer walked out with 14,000 files on a removable device. Boeing spent $17 million remediating a breach caused by an employee who emailed sensitive data to his spouse for help formatting a spreadsheet. And more recently, a single software update gone wrong led to global outages across critical sectors.
Incidents like these reveal an uncomfortable truth: insider risk is not a niche concern. It is a business risk with direct financial, operational, and reputational consequences.
Start With Human Factors and Build Trust
Traditional security models tend to view risk in binary terms — attackers on the outside, defenders on the inside. But the reality is more complex. According to ACSC’s latest practice benchmarking, conducted with MITRE’s special Insider Risk research and six Insider Risk Program leaders across sectors, the most effective programs manage insider risk as a human challenge and focus on human factors, not purely technical data.
A successful insider risk strategy recognizes three fundamentals:
It’s a human problem first. Most staff are well-intentioned, and errors often stem from bad habits or stress, not malice. Programs that build awareness and empathy outperform those that rely solely on monitoring.
Cross-functional collaboration is essential. Insider risk programs must connect HR, legal, and security from the start, aligning on privacy, compliance, and local regulations.
Projecting trust and encouraging collaboration are key. Shifting from an adversarial mindset to an “insider trust” approach fosters transparency and participation across the organization.
Use AI To Support the Shift to Behavioral Data Tracking
The shift from event-driven alerts to user-based analysis is where AI has become indispensable. AI tools aggregate data from multiple systems, identify behavioral drift, and help analysts see the “whole person” rather than isolated actions.
As ACSC’s Research Partner noted, “At the end of the day, humans are going to do what humans do. AI helps us ask and answer more complex questions.”
AI’s value lies in connecting the unseen dots — spotting patterns across data sources, surfacing subtle anomalies, and keeping insider risk teams focused on what truly matters: protecting trust.
Build a Culture of Resilience
Insider risk programs succeed when leaders approach them as an ongoing cycle of learning, not as a compliance checkbox. Mature organizations build momentum step by step, using each incident or near miss as fuel for improvement. They educate, adapt, and evolve their programs through constant feedback.
That iterative, human-centered approach is what separates organizations that prevent insider incidents from those that react to them.
Four Key Practices Captured in ACSC’s Practice Guide
The ACSC Executive Practice Guide, Next Generation Insider Risk Programs: A Human-Centered Approach offers a framework drawn from MITRE research and real-world case studies.
Leading practices include:
Start with a baseline. Capture a “normal state” for user behavior. This baseline becomes the foundation for detecting both individual and organizational drift.
Integrate data and collaboration. Combine inputs from HR, legal, IT, and behavioral analytics to identify risk patterns without over-surveillance.
Measure what matters. Track metrics such as time to resolution, false-positive reduction, and training coverage to demonstrate program value.
Educate continuously. Use real-world scenarios and simple “speed bumps” — not stop signs — to promote awareness and self-correction.
Download your copy today and learn how to align people, process, and technology to build an insider risk program that earns trust and delivers measurable resilience.
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