When it comes to reducing overall breach risk, it is easy to assume that employees represent low-hanging fruit – based on the premise that it is easier to control the actions of a company’s own employees than it is to defend against external attackers. However, HelpSystems recently announced research, interviewing 250 CISOs and CIOs in financial institutions about the cybersecurity challenges they face. And the reality is that insider threat - whether intentional or accidental - was cited by more than a third (35%) of survey respondents as one of the threats with the potential to cause the most damage in the next 12 months.

Likewise, phishing emails were cited by 20% of survey respondents. When it comes to insider threat, motivations are a grey area where the reasons behind breaches, whether through simple human error or deliberate actions, are harder to determine. This makes understanding, and mitigating, insider risk a far more problematic exercise.