Insider Threats: How to Detect Them with Employee Monitoring? 🪲

Insider threats are security risks originating from within an organization, often from employees, contractors, or partners with legitimate access to systems and sensitive data.

Left unaddressed, they pose a serious risk to critical infrastructure systems. As such, they are a constant source of anxiety for organizations, who seek to detect and eliminate them. As the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) explains, “Defining these threats is a critical step in understanding and establishing an insider threat mitigation program.”

A central pillar of insider threat mitigation is monitoring employee activity. This involves using software like TimeCamp to track and analyze employee activities on company networks and devices to track employee activity and identify potential data security risks and policy violations.

Track time safely

Keeping your data safe and private for maximum productivity boost

In what follows, we’ll unpack insider threat detection, insider risks, and how employee monitoring can help reduce organization security teams’ anxiety around these.

What are the Different Types of Insider Threat?

There are a range of possible insider threats facing most organizations. These typically fall into three broad categories:

Unintentional insider threats
Compromised insider threats
Malicious insider threats

1. Unintentional Insider Threats

The first of these, unintentional insider threats, relates to situations where an individual has unwittingly endangered their organization because of complacency, negligence, or misapplication of an organization’s security policies and procedures, usually through misunderstanding. In short, these threats are the result of human error.

2. Compromised Insider Threats

By contrast, Bright Defense describes compromised threats as “an employee whose account, device, or credentials have been taken over by an attacker through phishing, malware, or social engineering—often without their knowledge.”

71% of organizations are most concerned with compromised threats because they are so difficult to guard against, often involving large-scale data theft as well as the stealing of intellectual property and trade secrets. This can greatly harm businesses’ competitive advantage.

3. Malicious Insider Threats

The most potentially damaging and costly type of insider threat are those involving malicious intent. These deliberate cyber attacks are often motivated by financial gain, revenge, or corporate espionage, and typically cost USD 4.99 million more than the average data breach (USD 4.88 million) according to IBM.

Regardless of the type of threat concerned, businesses should remember that insider threats can involve any trusted individual with knowledge of or access to an organization’s assets. As such, they should regularly test their detection measures for effectiveness, remembering that insider threat prevention is best approached as part of overall enterprise risk management.

How Do UBA and UEBA Prevent Insider Threats?

For over a decade, companies have used User Behavior Analytics (UBA) and User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) for effective employee monitoring and insider threat prevention. The first of these, UBA, focuses solely on user behaviour, analyzing patterns of human behavior to detect anomalies indicating potential security threats. By contrast, UEBA includes monitoring non-user entities such as applications and company devices.

While UBA and UEBA have their drawbacks, TechTarget identifies three key benefits of both—namely:

Maintaining enterprises’ regulatory compliance with evolving laws and regulations.
Mitigating enterprise risk by identifying patterns relating to threats and security vulnerabilities.
Cost savings associated with fewer security breaches.

In terms of mitigating risk, UBA and UEBA help organizations detect threats by analyzing system logs and other data sources for suspicious activity. Specifically, they use machine learning, algorithms, and statistical analysis to interpret users’ interactions with devices containing critical data. This not only alerts organizations to potential insider threats, but is also valuable for identifying malicious insiders, who typically carry out their operations over time, taking steps to hide their activity and remain undetected.

Tools like TimeCamp leverage user behavior analytics ethically, avoiding practices such as keystroke logging, and email and video surveillance. TimeCamp is certified for ISO27001 and GDPR-compliant, meaning we don’t jeopardise our users’ sensitive information under any circumstance.

Do Employee Monitoring Programs Reduce Insider Threats?

The short answer? Absolutely. Introducing an ethical and effective worker monitoring program to your enterprise has the potential to drastically reduce the likelihood of insider threats. This typically involves:

Adopting clear policies that are understood across your organization.
Being clear on your choice of technology, and getting wider buy-in.
Regularly reviewing and adjusting your monitoring practices.

There is a caveat here, though—namely, balancing comprehensive monitoring with employee privacy. Getting this balance right is crucial to maintaining your employees’ trust, and to complying with major privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 in the USA.

A great way to achieve trust and buy-in as part of any user monitoring is by informing employees around monitoring practices and providing security awareness training. Our customer success managers at TimeCamp provide dedicated help with this at the onboarding stage and beyond.

What Are the Key Indicators of Potential Insider Threats?

Recognising the hallmarks of potential insider threats helps to prevent these individuals causing harm and evading detection. CrowdStrike states these threats usually present as “digital behaviour anomalies,” underlining the importance of user and entity behavior analytics above.

So, what user behaviors should organizations watch out for when it comes to insider threats?

an infographic listing the key indicators of potential insider threats

We recommend being particularly vigilant of:

Unapproved use of personal electronics for company business.
Use of software or apps unauthorised by your organization.
A pattern of access to proprietary or sensitive documentation.
Access requests for drives, documents, or apps beyond business need.
Logging into and accessing business sites at peculiar hours.
Unusual surges in traffic, indicating data download or transfer.

Another common form of malicious attack involves reaching out to employees via email, phone, or social media, offering them financial incentives to support them in their attacks.

More generally, warning signs may include unusual work hours, sudden or unexplained wealth, or frequent expressed dissatisfaction with your company or its work. Educating your employees around the different types of insider threat, and the signs or symptoms of malicious activity, is a shrewd move, aiding in early detection. This significantly reduces the potential for your business to be harmed.

What Are the Best Tools and Technologies for Insider Threat Management?

Detecting insider threats is easier with the right tools at your disposal. In addition to leading UBA and UEBA tools such as Code42 Incydr, IBM QRadar User Behavior Analytics, or Microsoft Defender for Identity, we encourage you to consider integrating the following technologies into your arsenal:

Data-loss prevention (DLP) systems.
Security information and event management (SIEM) solutions.
Security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) systems.

Security teams should also prioritize endpoint security and network encryption to reduce the likelihood of security incidents. Extended detection and response (XDR) platforms (such as Defiance XDR™, which offers comprehensive, fully managed security to mitigate insider threats), are an excellent solution here.

The precise blend of tools you opt for will depend on your organization’s use cases, though features to look out for include real-time alerting, user activity logging, and data exfiltration detection. In addition, make sure any additions to your tech stack align with your existing security infrastructure.

How Can Employee Monitoring Tools Prevent Insider Threats?

Beyond the other security tools above, dedicated employee monitoring software like TimeCamp are an excellent way of detecting and preventing insider threats to your organization, as well as isolating gaps in productivity—a point of concern for many firms, who recognise that 30% to 40% of employees’ work internet usage is non-work-related.

Key TimeCamp features that help with both insider threat and productivity management include:

Time and productivity tracking (desktop and mobile app).
Location-based attendance tracking (Geofencing).
Clocking in and out (TimeCamp’s Kiosk feature).
Calendar-integrated time tracking.
Screenshots.

These features, together with the security tools and technologies outlined above, can help identify compliance risks, support workplace security, and improve efficiency and productivity. 86.9% of our users have also reported that TimeCamp is more reliable than other time tracking solutions.

Insider Threat Management: How Can You Build a Proactive Strategy?

Identifying insider threats is becoming increasingly important for organizations. With that in mind, what should a proactive insider threat strategy involve? Key here is creating a culture of security awareness and controlled access in your organization—one that has at its core the following best practice security controls:

Understanding and protecting your business’s critical assets.
The right analytics tools for detecting anomalous user behavior.
Employee education, engagement, monitoring, respect, and privacy.

Getting this regime right involves regular training and communication, a multi-layered approach to security, and constant evaluation and review.

an infographic presenting security measures against insider threats

Specifically, we encourage you to adopt the following robust security measures:

Protecting sensitive data, including customer data.
Reducing your business’s attack surface.
Adopting UBA and UEBA (see above).
Deploying phishing simulations.
Enforcing multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Conducting point-of-hire and ongoing employee screenings.
Carrying out regular security audits and reviewing security policies, as well as role-based access controls.
Implementing a human cyber risk solution (such as UberGuard).

Employee monitoring software such as TimeCamp is a valuable addition to these measures. It not only supports in the detection and further investigation of suspect behavior, but also offers a level of security and productivity that reduces companies’ concerns around employees working from home, without compromising employee privacy.

How Monitoring Employees Helps Mitigate Insider Threats in Remote Work Environments

It’s one thing managing insider threats at work, but managing them in remote work environments presents an altogether different challenge. This challenge stems mainly from the lack of visibility into employee activities in these environments, along with the increased use of personal devices for work purposes.

Adjusting for these differences is achievable with the right remote work management practices and tools, such as time tracking. For example, TimeCamp’s unique Proof of Work feature provides clients and managers with evidence that tasks are being performed within tracked hours. Not only does this benefit security, but it also helps employees with productivity and client billability. (As evidence, our clients report an average 15.82% uplift in productivity since using our app, as well as a 14.8% billability increase.)

That said, effectively implementing worker monitoring requires buy-in, for which education, training, good communication, and respect for remote employees’ privacy—core elements of our own onboarding process at TimeCamp—are fundamental.

It’s also worth avoiding over-monitoring, which can violate employee’s expectation of privacy, in turn decreasing morale, productivity, and trust in employers. It can also create a sense of constant surveillance that drives stress and anxiety, particularly among remote employees.

What are the Ethical Considerations of Employee Monitoring?

As we have seen, employee monitoring is an effective means of detecting and mitigating insider threats, especially when combined with other proven methods. But implementing it correctly involves addressing several ethical considerations.

The first of these relates to communicating clearly to employees how their privacy and sensitive personal data—including their personal identifiable information—are being used. In the case of TimeCamp, there is nothing to be concerned with here, since we never collect sensitive employee information or other sensitive data, nor invade employee privacy.

The second consideration is making sure your company has a clear employment monitoring policy in place. This should transparently cover matters such as internet usage, access controls (including privileged access management), information storage, and user protocols—plus any other information around anonymization and protection. The policy should also provide clear guidance for remote workers around these matters.

What are the Legal Considerations of Employee Monitoring?

In addition to the ethical considerations above, ensure your company is observing any relevant laws surrounding information protection when you implement employee monitoring—including national, supranational, and federal laws (such as the GDPR in the EU), or state-specific regulations (such as the California Compliance Privacy Act [CCPA] in the USA). Employers should also:

Consider the privacy laws of their employees’ residences when implementing monitoring, where necessary soliciting legal counsel for support with this.
Minimize sensitive information collection.
Gain consent where possible before conducting employee monitoring.

Heeding the steps above will not only increase the chances of your workers buying into worker monitoring, but it will also ensure you’re maximising your workplace’s productivity while staying on the right side of the law.

Conclusion

Employee monitoring is an excellent way of combating insider threats to your organization, whether these be unintentional, compromised, or malicious insider threats.

Combined with an understanding of how to detect these insider risks, the right set of tools, and a clear strategy for managing access controls and pre-empting insider threats, ethically-implemented employee monitoring has the potential to drastically improve your organization’s security and productivity.

Want to find out for yourself?

We safeguard your time tracking data

Ensuring the highest security levels and full data protection compliance since 2010

Sources:

Bright Defense. “Risks and Mitigation of Insider Threats.” Accessed February 22, 2025. https://www.brightdefense.com/resources/risks-and-mitigation-of-insider-threats/

CrowdStrike. “Detecting Insider Threat Indicators.” Accessed February 22, 2025. https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/cybersecurity-101/identity-protection/insider-threat-indicators/

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “Defining Insider Threats.” Accessed February 22, 2025. https://www.cisa.gov/topics/physical-security/insider-threat-mitigation/defining-insider-threats

IBM. “Insider Threat Detection Solutions.” Accessed February 22, 2025. https://www.ibm.com/insider-threat

TechTarget. “What is Employee Monitoring?” Accessed February 22, 2025. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/employee-monitoring

TechTarget. “What is User Behavior Analytics (UBA)?” Accessed February 22, 2025. https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/user-behavior-analytics-UBA

UpGuard. “Insider Threats in Cyber Security?” Accessed February 22, 2025. https://www.upguard.com/blog/insider-threat

Check out our other popular posts

Robert Lowton Robert Lowton is the director of Lobster Copy, a strategic copywriting consultancy focused on driving business turnover through high-quality branding, lead generation, and conversion copywriting. Rob has extensive experience as a brand and content strategist, copywriter, coach, and as an international language lecturer. He lives in Norwich, England.

5.0 out of 5 stars (based on 3 reviews)

CUSTOMER STORIES

How Does Employee Monitoring Help Detect Insider Threats?