Insider Threats Are Getting More Dangerous - Here Is How to Stop Them
It is a Monday morning and someone from your team handed in their resignation last week. Their last day is Friday. They still have full access to your client records, shared drives, and email. Nobody has flagged it to your IT support. Nothing has changed in the system. That situation - quiet, ordinary, unremarkable - is exactly how insider threats happen.
An insider threat is any security risk that comes from someone who already has legitimate access to your systems. That includes employees, contractors, and anyone else you have handed a login to. Because they are already inside, the usual defences designed to keep attackers out do not apply. The system sees them as a trusted user and treats them accordingly.
The reason this matters more now is that insiders are not always acting with bad intent. Some are. A departing employee who copies client contact lists, or a disgruntled staff member who hands their login credentials to a third party for money - those are deliberate acts. But a large portion of insider incidents come from careless behaviour: someone using a personal device to access client files, or accidentally sharing sensitive information through an unsecured channel. The outcome can be just as damaging either way. And because these incidents tend to involve normal-looking activity, they take a long time to detect. Research from the Ponemon Institute found it takes organisations an average of 85 days to contain an insider threat - nearly three months of potential exposure before anyone realises something is wrong.
Third parties add another layer of complexity. Contractors, bookkeepers, software vendors, and other external parties often need system access to do their work. That access is legitimate and necessary. But it creates risk if it is not properly reviewed, scoped, and monitored. Giving a contractor broad access when they only need access to one folder is a common and easily avoided mistake.
When insider threats are managed well, the business barely notices. Staff have access to what they need and nothing more. When someone leaves or changes roles, their access is updated the same day - not weeks later when someone remembers to mention it. Contractors get scoped access that expires when their work is done. Multi-factor authentication - where a second verification step is required to log in, not just a password - is in place across all business applications. And there is background monitoring that flags unusual activity automatically, such as a large file download at midnight or a login from an unexpected location. The practice manager does not need to manage any of this day to day. It runs quietly in the background.
Getting to that point starts with a proper review of who currently has access to your systems and what level of access they have. From there, a layered security approach covers the gaps: access controls, multi-factor authentication, endpoint management for devices that connect to your network, and monitoring that can detect unusual behaviour before it becomes a breach. Staff training also matters - not lengthy IT awareness courses, but practical guidance on what to do and what not to do with client data. If there is ever a breach involving personal information, the NZ Privacy Act 2020 requires notification to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz, so getting ahead of this is far better than responding to it.
If you are not sure whether your current setup would catch an insider incident, ITstuffed can walk through it with you. The IT Fit Check takes 15 minutes and gives you a clear picture of where your exposure is.