Insider threats arise from careless users, users with compromised credentials, or users who seek to cause harm intentionally.
The latter type of user—the malicious insider—can be the most daunting for security teams to manage. It requires them to analyze a user’s behavior and determine whether they have bad intentions. Although less frequent, malicious insiders are costly. The average cost of a data breach by a malicious insider is the highest of any attack vector at $4.9 million, which is 9.6% higher than the global average.
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Source: Proofpoint
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