The pandemic has changed people and society in ways we wouldn’t have thought imaginable just 24 months ago.  Lockdown restrictions and remote working allowed many employees to reflect on what they want to do with their lives and the sort of companies they want to work for, as well as those they don’t.  Consequently, in April 2021 four million US workers quit their jobs, and according to recent research by Microsoft, over 40% of employees are considering leaving their employer this year. It’s being called ‘#TheGreatResignation’, and it presents a whole pile of problems for CISOs and other security leaders.  Here are some of the common problems you might face in keeping data secure when staff move on.  Staff burnout Let’s face it, everyone’s a little frazzled round the edges right now.  Our 2020 report, The Psychology Of Human Error, revealed that a shocking 93% of US and UK employees feel tired and stressed at some point during their working week. Staff burnout was real before the pandemic, and it’s only got worse during it as the months have turned into years.  Over half the employees (52%) we surveyed said they make more mistakes at work when they’re stressed. And we know that as some employees move on, others are left to pick up the slack, adding to their stress and further increasing the potential for human error. This goes to show that this isn’t just a cyber security issue, it’s a people issue, so get your COO and HR team involved and start exploring ways to improve company well-being. Mentally, they’ve already left Staff who are leaving will have ‘mentally uncoupled’ from your organization and its processes well before they actually make their exit. They’re distracted – perhaps even excited – about their new future and where they’re going. Our survey found that 47% of employees surveyed cited distraction as a top reason for falling for a phishing scam, while two-fifths said they sent an email to the wrong person because they were distracted.  This is made worse by the next problem…  “Hi, it’s Mark from HR, we haven’t met…” Changing jobs can bring staff into contact with people they might not have had much contact with before. In a big multinational, we doubt many staff can name every member of the payroll team – they might even be in another country! Our How to Hack a Human report found that an overwhelming 93% of workers also update their job status on social media, while 36% share information about their job.  If an employee has announced their imminent departure on social media, they can potentially be targets of spear phishing by hackers impersonating HR or operations staff. These could contain seemingly innocuous requests for key card returns, contract documents, and even IT hardware. We’ve seen it before! Check out our Threat Catalogue to see real examples of phishing attacks targeting (and impersonating!) new starters.  Notice period exfiltration Unless they’re leaving for a complete lifestyle change, like being a warden on a deserted Scottish island, many people tend to stay in the same sector or industry.  This means there’s a high probability of staff going to one of your competitors.  Our research reveals an increase in data exfiltration during an employee’s notice period. In fact, 45% of employees admit to “stealing” data before leaving or after being dismissed from a job. You can see the temptation – what better way to make a great impression on your first day than by bringing a juicy file of customer data, source code, or other highly valuable IP. People will often extract these assets by emailing them to their personal accounts. This is a particular problem in sectors such as legal, financial services, and entertainment, where a client base and extensive networks are crucial.  New staff So far all these problems have focused on leaving staff or those that remain, but another potential weak spot is the new hire that will replace them.  They’ve yet to undertake security awareness training on your systems and processes. They may have also announced their new role on social media (which means they could be victim to the same problem we explained in point 3).  It all comes back to one crucial point: 85% of data breaches are caused by human error.  How Tessian helps Security leaders have a big job; they have to secure networks, endpoints, and platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams. But email remains the #1 threat vector. So how do you lock down email and prevent data exfiltration and successful phishing attacks? By empowering your people to do their best work, without security getting in the way. We believe employees should be experts in their respective fields, not in cybersecurity. Tessian’s suite of products secure the human layer, so that staff can concentrate on their roles and be empowered to do their best work.  Tessian Defender: Automatically prevents spear phishing, account takeover, business email compromise, and other targeted email attacks. Tessian Enforcer: Automatically prevents data exfiltration over email. Tessian Guardian: Automatically prevents accidental data loss caused by misdirected emails and misattached files.

Insider threats are a big problem for organizations across industries. Why? Because they’re so hard to detect. After all, insiders have legitimate access to systems and data, unlike the external bad actors many security policies and tools help defend against. It could be anyone, from a careless employee to a rogue business partner. That’s why we’ve put together this list of Insider Threat types and examples. By exploring different methods and motives, security, compliance, and IT leaders (and their employees) will be better equipped to spot Insider Threats before a data breach happens. Types of Insider Threats First things first, let’s define what exactly an Insider Threats is. Insider threats are people – whether employees, former employees, contractors, business partners, or vendors – with legitimate access to an organization’s networks and systems who deliberately exfiltrate data for personal gain or accidentally leak sensitive information. The key here is that there are two distinct types of Insider Threats:  The Malicious Insider: Malicious Insiders knowingly and intentionally steal data. For example, an employee or contractor may exfiltrate valuable information (like Intellectual Property (IP), Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or financial information) for some kind of financial incentive, a competitive edge, or simply because they’re holding a grudge for being let go or furloughed.  The Negligent Insider: Negligent insiders are just your average employees who have made a mistake. For example, an employee could send an email containing sensitive information to the wrong person, email company data to personal accounts to do some work over the weekend, fall victim to a phishing or spear phishing attack, or lose their work device.  We cover these different types of Insider Threats in detail in this article: What is an Insider Threat? Insider Threat Definition, Examples, and Solutions.

17 Examples of Insider Threats 

1. The employee who exfiltrated data after being fired or furloughed Since the outbreak of COVID-19, 81% of the global workforce have had their workplace fully or partially closed. And, with the economy grinding to a halt, employees across industries have been laid off or furloughed.  This has caused widespread distress. When you combine this distress with the reduced visibility of IT and security teams while their teams work from home, you’re bound to see more incidents of Malicious Insiders.  One such case involves a former employee of a medical device packaging company who was let go in early March 2020  By the end of March – and after he was given his final paycheck – Dobbins hacked into the company’s computer network, granted himself administrator access, and then edited and deleted nearly 120,000 records.  This caused significant delays in the delivery of medical equipment to healthcare providers.

2. The employee who sold company data for financial gain In 2017, an employee at Bupa accessed customer information via an in-house customer relationship management system, copied the information, deleted it from the database, and then tried to sell it on the Dark Web.  The breach affected 547,000 customers and in 2018 after an investigation by the ICO, Bupa was fined £175,000.

3. The employee who stole trade secrets In July 2020, further details emerged of a long-running insider job at General Electric (GE) that saw an employee steal valuable proprietary data and trade secrets. The employee, named Jean Patrice Delia, gradually exfiltrated over 8,000 sensitive files from GE’s systems over eight years — intending to leverage his professional advantage to start a rival company. The FBI investigation into Delia’s scam revealed that he persuaded an IT administrator to grant him access to files and that he emailed commercially-sensitive calculations to a co-conspirator. Having pleaded guilty to the charges, Delia faces up to 87 months in jail. What can we learn from this extraordinary inside job? Ensure you have watertight access controls and that you can monitor employee email accounts for suspicious activity.

4. The employees who exposed 250 million customer records Here’s an example of a “negligent insider” threat. In December 2019, a researcher from Comparitech noticed that around 250 million Microsoft customer records were exposed on the open web. This vulnerability meant that the personal information of up to 250 million people—including email addresses, IP addresses, and location—was accessible to anyone with a web browser. This incident represents a potentially serious breach of privacy and data protection law and could have left Microsoft customers open to scams and phishing attacks—all because the relevant employees failed to secure the databases properly. Microsoft reportedly secured the information within 24 hours of being notified about the breach.

5. The nuclear scientists who hijacked supercomputer to mine Bitcoin Russian secret services reported in 2018 that they had arrested employees of the country’s leading nuclear research lab on suspicion of using a powerful supercomputer for bitcoin mining. Authorities discovered that scientists had abused their access to some of Russia’s most powerful supercomputers by rigging up a secret bitcoin-mining data center. Bitcoin mining is extremely resource-intensive and some miners are always seeking new ways to outsource the expense onto other people’s infrastructure. This case is an example of how insiders can misuse company equipment.

6. The employee who fell for a phishing attack While we’ve seen a spike in phishing and spear phishing attacks since the outbreak of COVID-19, these aren’t new threats. One example involves an email that was sent to a senior staff member at Australian National University. The result? 700 Megabytes of data were stolen. This data was related to both staff and students and included details like names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, emergency contact numbers, tax file numbers, payroll information, bank account details, and student academic records.

7. The work-from-home employees duped by a vishing scam Cybercriminals saw an opportunity when many of Twitter’s staff started working from home. One cybercrime group conducted one of the most high-profile hacks of 2020 — knocking 4% off Twitter’s share price in the process. In July 2020, after gathering information on key home-working employees, the hackers called them up and impersonated Twitter IT administrators. During these calls, they successfully persuaded some employees to disclose their account credentials. Using this information, the cybercriminals logged into Twitter’s admin tools, changed the passwords of around 130 high-profile accounts — including those belonging to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kanye West — and used them to conduct a Bitcoin scam. This incident put “vishing” (voice phishing) on the map, and it reinforces what all cybersecurity leaders know — your company must apply the same level of cybersecurity protection to all its employees, whether they’re working on your premises or in their own homes. Want to learn more about vishing? We cover it in detail in this article: Smishing and Vishing: What You Need to Know About These Phishing Attacks.

8. The ex-employee who got two years for sabotaging data The case of San Jose resident Sudhish Kasaba Ramesh serves as a reminder that it’s not just your current employees that pose a potential internal threat—but your ex-employees, too. Ramesh received two years imprisonment in December 2020 after a court found that he had accessed Cisco’s systems without authorization, deploying malware that deleted over 16,000 user accounts and caused $2.4 million in damage. The incident emphasizes the importance of properly restricting access controls—and locking employees out of your systems as soon as they leave your organization.

9. The employee who took company data to a new employer for a competitive edge This incident involves two of the biggest tech players: Google and Uber. In 2015, a lead engineer at Waymo, Google’s self-driving car project, left the company to start his own self-driving truck venture, Otto. But, before departing, he exfiltrated several trade secrets including diagrams and drawings related to simulations, radar technology, source code snippets, PDFs marked as confidential, and videos of test drives.  How? By downloading 14,000 files onto his laptop directly from Google servers. Otto was acquired by Uber after a few months, at which point Google executives discovered the breach. In the end, Waymo was awarded $245 million worth of Uber shares and, in March, the employee pleaded guilty.

10. The employee who stole a hard drive containing HR data Coca-Cola was forced to issue data breach notification letters to around 8,000 employees after a worker stole a hard drive containing human resources records. Why did this employee steal so much data about his colleagues? Coca-Cola didn’t say. But we do know that the employee had recently left his job—so he may have seen an opportunity to sell or misuse the data once outside of the company. Remember—network and cybersecurity are crucial, but you need to consider whether insiders have physical access to data or assets, too.

11. The employees leaking customer data  Toward the end of October 2020, an unknown number of Amazon customers received an email stating that their email address had been “disclosed by an Amazon employee to a third-party.” Amazon said that the “employee” had been fired — but the story changed slightly later on, according to a statement shared by Motherboard which referred to multiple “individuals” and “bad actors.” So how many customers were affected? What motivated the leakers? We still don’t know. But this isn’t the first time that the tech giant’s own employees have leaked customer data. Amazon sent out a near-identical batch of emails in January 2020 and November 2018. If there’s evidence of systemic insider exfiltration of customer data at Amazon, this must be tackled via internal security controls.

12. The employee offered a bribe by a Russian national In September 2020, a Nevada court charged Russian national Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov with conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer. The court alleges that Kruichkov attempted to recruit an employee of Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory. Kriochkov and his associates reportedly offered a Tesla employee $1 million to “transmit malware” onto Tesla’s network via email or USB drive to “exfiltrate data from the network.” The Kruichkov conspiracy was disrupted before any damage could be done. But it wasn’t the first time Tesla had faced an insider threat. In June 2018, CEO Elon Musk emailed all Tesla staff to report that one of the company’s employees had “conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage to [Tesla’s] operations.” With state-sponsored cybercrime syndicates wreaking havoc worldwide, we could soon see further attempts to infiltrate companies. That’s why it’s crucial to run background checks on new hires and ensure an adequate level of internal security.

13. The ex-employee who offered 100 GB of company data for $4,000 Police in Ukraine reported in 2018 that a man had attempted to sell 100 GB of customer data to his ex-employer’s competitors—for the bargain price of $4,000. The man allegedly used his insider knowledge of the company’s security vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to the data. This scenario presents another challenge to consider when preventing insider threats—you can revoke ex-employees’ access privileges, but they might still be able to leverage their knowledge of your systems’ vulnerabilities and weak points.

14. The employee who accidentally sent an email to the wrong person Misdirected emails happen more than most think. In fact, Tessian platform data shows that at least 800 misdirected emails are sent every year in organizations with 1,000 employees. But, what are the implications? It depends on what data has been exposed.  In one incident in mid-2019, the private details of 24 NHS employees were exposed after someone in the HR department accidentally sent an email to a team of senior executives. This included: Mental health information Surgery information While the employee apologized, the exposure of PII like this can lead to medical identity theft and even physical harm to the patients. We outline even more consequences of misdirected emails in this article. 

15. The employee who accidentally misconfigured access privileges NHS coronavirus contact-tracing app details were leaked after documents hosted in Google Drive were left open for anyone with a link to view. Worse still, links to the documents were included in several others published by the NHS.  These documents – marked “SENSITIVE” and “OFFICIAL” contained information about the app’s future development roadmap and revealed that officials within the NHS and Department of Health and Social Care are worried about the app’s reliance and that it could be open to abuse that leads to public panic.

16. The security officer who was fined $316,000 for stealing data (and more!) In 2017, a California court found ex-security officer Yovan Garcia guilty of hacking his ex-employer’s systems to steal its data, destroy its servers, deface its website, and copy its proprietary software to set up a rival company. The cybercrime spree was reportedly sparked after Garcia was fired for manipulating his timesheet. Garcia received a fine of over $316,000 for his various offenses. The sheer amount of damage caused by this one disgruntled employee is pretty shocking. Garcia stole employee files, client data, and confidential business information; destroyed backups; and even uploaded embarrassing photos of his one-time boss to the company website.

17. The employee who sent company data to a personal email account We mentioned earlier that employees oftentimes email company data to themselves to work over the weekend.  But, in this incident, an employee at Boeing shared a spreadsheet with his wife in hopes that she could help solve formatting issues. While this sounds harmless, it wasn’t. The personal information of 36,000 employees were exposed, including employee ID data, places of birth, and accounting department codes.

How common are Insider Threats? Incidents involving Insider Threats are on the rise, with a marked 47% increase over the last two years. This isn’t trivial, especially considering the global average cost of an Insider Threat is $11.45 million. This is up from $8.76 in 2018. Who’s more culpable, Negligent Insiders or Malicious Insiders?  Negligent Insiders (like those who send emails to the wrong person) are responsible for 62% of all incidents Negligent Insiders who have their credentials stolen (via a phishing attack or physical theft) are responsible for 25% of all incidents Malicious Insiders are responsible for 14% of all incidents It’s worth noting, though, that credential theft is the most detrimental to an organization’s bottom line, costing an average of $2.79 million.  Which industries suffer the most? The “what, who, and why” behind incidents involving Insider Threats vary greatly by industry.  For example, customer data is most likely to be compromised by an Insider in the Healthcare industry, while money is the most common target in the Finance and Insurance sector. But, who exfiltrated the data is just as important as what data was exfiltrated. The sectors most likely to experience incidents perpetrated by trusted business partners are: Finance and Insurance Federal Government Entertainment Information Technology Healthcare State and Local Government Overall, though, when it comes to employees misusing their access privileges, the Healthcare and Manufacturing industries experience the most incidents. On the other hand, the Public Sector suffers the most from lost or stolen assets and also ranks in the top three for miscellaneous errors (for example misdirected emails) alongside Healthcare and Finance. You can find even more stats about Insider Threats (including a downloadable infographic) here.  The bottom line: Insider Threats are a growling problem. We have a solution.

Organizations often focus their security efforts on threats from outside. But increasingly, it’s people inside the organization who cause data breaches. There was a 47% increase in Insider Threat incidents between 2018 and 2020, including via malicious data exfiltration and accidental data loss. And the comprehensive Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report suggests that Insiders are directly responsible for around 22% of security incidents. So, what is an insider threat and how can organizations protect themselves from their own people?

Importantly, there are two distinct types of insider threats, and understanding different motives and methods of exfiltration is key for detection and prevention. Types of Insider Threats The Malicious Insider

Malicious Insiders knowingly and intentionally steal data, money, or other assets. For example, an employee or contractor exfiltrating intellectual property, personal information, or financial information for personal gain.  What’s in it for the insider? It depends. Financial Incentives Data is extremely valuable. Malicious insiders can sell customer’s information on the dark web. There’s a huge market for personal information—research suggests you can steal a person’s identity for around $1,010. Malicious Insiders can steal leads, intellectual property, or other confidential information for their own financial gain—causing serious damage to an organization in the process. Competitive Edge Malicious Insiders can steal company data to get a competitive edge in a new venture. This is more common than you might think.  For example, a General Electric employee was imprisoned in 2020 for stealing thousands of proprietary files for use in a rival business. Unsurprisingly, stealing data to gain a competitive edge is most common in competitive industries, like finance and entertainment. The Negligent (or Unaware) Insider 

Negligent Insiders are just “average” employees doing their jobs. Unfortunately, “to err is human”… which means people can—and do—make mistakes. Sending a misdirected email Sending an email to the wrong person is one of the most common ways a negligent insider can lose control of company data. Indeed, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office reports misdirected emails as the number one cause of data breaches.  And according to Tessian platform data, organizations with over 1,000 employees send around 800 misdirected emails every year. We’ve put together 11 Examples of Data Breaches Caused By Misdirected Emails if you want to see how bad this type of Insider Threat can get. Phishing attacks Last year, 66% of organizations worldwide experienced spear phishing attacks. Like all social engineering attacks, phishing involves tricking a person into clicking a link, downloading malware, or taking some other action to compromise a company’s security. A successful phishing attack requires an employee to fall for it. And practically any of your employees could fall for a sophisticated spear phishing attack. Want to know more about this type of Negligent Insider threat? Read Who Are the Most Likely Targets of Spear Phishing Attacks? Physical data loss   Whether it’s a phone, laptop, or a paper file, losing devices or hard-copy data can constitute a data breach. Indeed, in June 2021, a member of the public top-secret British military documents in a “soggy heap” behind a bus stop. Looking for more examples of Insider Threats (both malicious and negligent?) Check out this article: 17 Real-World Examples of Insider Threats How can I protect against Insider Threats? As we’ve seen, common Insider Threats are common. So why is so hard to prevent them? Detecting and preventing Insider Threats is such a challenge because it requires full visibility over your data—including who has access to it. This means fully mapping your company’s data, finding all entry and exit points, and identifying all the employees, contractors, and third parties who have access to it. From there, it comes down to training, monitoring, and security. Training While security awareness training isn’t the only measure you need to take to improve security, it is important. Security awareness training can help you work towards legal compliance, build threat awareness, and foster a security culture among your employees. Looking for resources to help train your employees? Check out this blog with a shareable PDF. Monitoring Insider Threats can be difficult to detect because insiders normally leverage their legitimate access to data. That’s why it’s important to monitor data for signs of potentially suspicious activity. Telltale signs of an insider threat include: Large data or file transfers Multiple failed logins (or other unusual login activity) Incorrect software access requests Machine’s take over Abuse by Service Accounts Email Security The vast majority of data exfiltration attempts, accidental data loss incidents, and phishing attacks take place via email. Therefore, the best action you can take to prevent insider threats is to implement an email security solution. Tessian is a machine learning-powered email security solution that uses anomaly detection, behavioral analysis, and natural language processing to detect data loss. Tessian Enforcer detects data exfiltration attempts and non-compliant emails Tessian Guardian detects misdirected emails and misattached files Tessian Defender detects and prevents spear phishing attacks How does Tessian detect and prevent Insider Threats? Tessian’s machine learning algorithms analyze your company’s email data. The software learns every employee’s normal communication patterns and maps their trusted email relationships — both inside and outside your organization. Tessian inspects the content and metadata of inbound emails for any signals suggestive of phishing—like suspicious payloads, geophysical locations, IP addresses, email clients—or data exfiltration—like anomalous attachments, content, or sending patterns. Once it detects a threat, Tessian alerts employees and administrators with clear, concise, contextual warnings that reinforce security awareness training

Between 2018 and 2020, there was a 47% increase in the frequency of incidents involving Insider Threats. This includes malicious data exfiltration and accidental data loss. The latest research, from the Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report, suggests that Insiders are responsible for around 22% of security incidents. Why does this matter? Because these incidents cost organizations millions, are leading to breaches that expose sensitive customer, client, and company data, and are notoriously hard to prevent. In this article, we’ll explore: How often these incident are happening What motivates Insider Threats to act The financial  impact Insider Threats have on larger organizations The effectiveness of different preventive measures You can also download this infographic with the key statistics from this article. If you know what an Insider Threat is, click here to jump down the page. If not, you can check out some of these articles for a bit more background. What is an Insider Threat? Insider Threat Definition, Examples, and Solutions Insider Threat Indicators: 11 Ways to Recognize an Insider Threat Insider Threats: Types and Real-World Examples

How frequently are Insider Threat incidents happening? As we’ve said, incidents involving Insider Threats have increased by 47% between 2018 and 2020. A 2021 report from Cybersecurity Insiders also suggests that 57% of organizations feel insider incidents have become more frequent over the past 12 months. But the frequency of incidents varies industry by industry. The Verizon 2021 Breach Investigations Report offers a comprehensive overview of different incidents in different industries, with a focus on patterns, actions, and assets. Verizon found that: The Healthcare and Finance industries experience the most incidents involving employees misusing their access privileges The Healthcare and Finance industries also suffer the most from lost or stolen assets The Finance and Public Administration sectors experience the most “miscellaneous errors” (including misdirected emails)—with Healthcare in a close third place !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js");

There are also several different types of Insider Threats and the “who and why” behind these incidents can vary. According to one study: Negligent Insiders are the most common and account for 62% of all incidents.  Negligent Insiders who have their credentials stolen account for 25% of all incidents Malicious Insiders are responsible for 14% of all incidents.  !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); Looking at Tessian’s own platform data, Negligent Insiders may be responsible for even more incidents than most expected. On average, 800 emails are sent to the wrong person every year in companies with 1,000 employees. This is 1.6x more than IT leaders estimate.  !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); Malicious Insiders are likely responsible for more incidents than expected, too. Between March and July 2020, 43% of security incidents reported were caused by malicious insiders. We should expect this number to increase. Around 98% of organizations say they feel some degree of vulnerability to Insider Threats. Over three-quarters of IT leaders (78%) think their organization is at greater risk of Insider Threats if their company adopts a permanent hybrid working structure. Which, by the way, the majority of employees would prefer. What motivates Insider Threats to act? When it comes to the “why”, Insiders – specifically Malicious Insiders – are often motivated by money, a competitive edge, or revenge. But, according to one report, there is a range of reasons malicious Insiders act. Some just do it for fun.  !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); But, we don’t always know exactly “why”. For example, Tessian’s own survey data shows that 45% of employees download, save, send, or otherwise exfiltrate work-related documents before leaving a job or after being dismissed.  While we may be able to infer that they’re taking spreadsheets, contracts, or other documents to impress a future or potential employer, we can’t know for certain.  Note: Incidents like this happen the most frequently in competitive industries like Financial Services and Business, Consulting, & Management. This supports our theory.  !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); How much do incidents involving Insider Threats cost? The cost of Insider Threat incidents varies based on the type of incident, with incidents involving stolen credentials causing the most financial damage. But, across the board, the cost has been steadily rising. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); Likewise, there are regional differences in the cost of Insider Threats, with incidents in North America costing the most and almost twice as much as those in Asia-Pacific. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); But, overall, the average global cost has increased 31% over the last 2 years, from $8.76 million in 2018 to $11.45 in 2020 and the largest chunk goes towards containment, remediation, incident response, and investigation. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); But, what about prevention? How effective are preventative measures? As the frequency of Insider Threat incidents continues to increase, so does investment in cybersecurity. But, what solutions are available and which solutions do security, IT, and compliance leaders trust to detect and prevent data loss within their organizations? A 2021 report from Cybersecurity Insiders suggests that a shortfall in security monitoring might be contributing to the prevalence of Insider Threat incidents. Asked whether they monitor user behavior to detect anomalous activity: Just 28% of firms responded that they used automation to monitor user behavior 14% of firms don’t monitor user behavior at all 28% of firms said they only monitor access logs 17% of firms only monitor specific user activity under specific circumstances 10% of firms only monitor user behavior after an incident has occurred And, according to Tessian’s research report, The State of Data Loss Prevention, most rely on security awareness training, followed by following company policies/procedures, and machine learning/intelligent automation. But, incidents actually happen more frequently in organizations that offer training the most often and, while the majority of employees say they understand company policies and procedures, comprehension doesn’t help prevent malicious behavior. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); That’s why many organizations rely on rule-based solutions. But, those often fall short.  Not only are they admin-intensive for security teams, but they’re blunt instruments and often prevent employees from doing their jobs while also failing to prevent data loss from Insiders.  So, how can you detect incidents involving Insiders in order to prevent data loss and eliminate the cost of remediation? Machine learning. How does Tessian detect and prevent Insider Threats? Tessian turns an organization’s email data into its best defense against inbound and outbound email security threats. Powered by machine learning, our Human Layer Security technology understands human behavior and relationships, enabling it to automatically detect and prevent anomalous and dangerous activity. Tessian Enforcer detects and prevents data exfiltration attempts Tessian Guardian detects and prevents misdirected emails Tessian Defender detects and prevents spear phishing attacks Importantly, Tessian’s technology automatically updates its understanding of human behavior and evolving relationships through continuous analysis and learning of the organization’s email network. Oh, and it works silently in the background, meaning employees can do their jobs without security getting in the way.  Interested in learning more about how Tessian can help prevent Insider Threats in your organization? You can read some of our customer stories here or book a demo.

In our latest research report, we took a deep dive into Data Loss Prevention in Financial Services and revealed that data loss incidents are happening up to 38x more frequently than IT leaders currently estimate.  And, while data loss is a big problem across all industries, it’s especially problematic in those that handle highly sensitive data. One of those industries is Financial Services. Before we dive into how frequently data loss incidents are happening and why, let’s define what exactly a data loss incident is in the context of this report. We focused on outbound data loss on email. This could be either intentional data exfiltration by a disgruntled or financially motivated employee or it could be accidental data loss.  Here’s what we found out. The majority of employees have accidentally or intentionally exfiltrated data  Tessian platform data shows that in organizations with 1,000 employees, 800 emails are sent to the wrong person every year. This is 1.6x more than IT leaders estimated. Likewise, in organizations of the same size, 27,500 emails containing company data are sent to personal accounts. We call these unauthorized emails, and IT leaders estimated just 720 are sent annually. That’s a big difference.

But, what about in this particular sector? Over half (57%) of Financial Services professionals across the US and the UK admit to sending at least one misdirected email and 67% say they’ve sent unauthorized emails. But, when you isolate the US employees, the percentage almost doubles. 91% of Financial Services professionals in the US say they’ve sent company data to their personal accounts.  !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); And, because Financial Services is highly competitive, professionals working in this industry are among the most likely to download, save, or send company data to personal accounts before leaving or after being dismissed from a job, with 47% of employees saying they’ve done it. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); To really understand the consequences of incidents like this, you have to consider the type of data this industry handles and the compliance standards and data privacy regulations they’re obligated to satisfy. Every day, professionals working in Financial Services send and receive: Bank Account Numbers Loan Account Numbers Credit/Debit Card Numbers Social Security Numbers M&A Data In order to protect that data, they must comply with regional and industry-specific laws, including: GLBA COPPA FACTA FDIC 370 HIPAA CCPA GDPR So, what happens if there’s a breach? The implications are far-reaching, ranging from lost customer trust and a damaged reputation to revenue loss and regulatory fines.  For more information on these and other compliance standards, visit our Compliance Hub. Remote-working is making Data Loss Prevention (DLP) more challenging  The sudden transition from office to home has presented a number of challenges to both employees and security, IT, and compliance leaders.  To start, 65% of professionals working in Financial Services say they feel less secure working from home than they do in the office. It makes sense. People aren’t working from their normal work stations and likely don’t have the same equipment. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); A further 56% say they’re less likely to follow safe data practices when working remotely. Why? The most common reason was that IT isn’t watching, followed by being distracted.  Most of us can relate. When working remotely – especially from home – people have other responsibilities and distractions like childcare and roommates and, the truth is, the average employee is just trying to do their job, not be a champion of cybersecurity.  That’s why it’s so important that security and IT teams equip employees with the solutions they need to work securely, wherever they are. Current solutions aren’t empowering employees to work securely  Training, policies, and rule-based technology all have a place in security strategies. But, based on our research, these solutions alone aren’t working. In fact, 64% of professionals working in Financial Services say they’ll find a workaround to security software or policies if they impede productivity. This is 10% higher than the average across all industries. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js");

How does Tessian prevent data loss on email? Tessian uses machine learning to address the problem of accidental or deliberate data loss by applying human understanding to email behavior. Our machine learning models analyze email data to understand how people work and communicate. They have been trained on more than two billion emails and they continue to adapt and learn from your own data as human relationships evolve over time. This enables Tessian Guardian to look at email communications and determine in real time if particular emails look like they’re about to be sent to the wrong person. Tessian Enforcer, meanwhile, can identify when sensitive data is about to be sent to an unsafe place outside an organization’s email network. Finally, Tessian Defender detects and prevents inbound attacks like spear phishing, account takeover (ATO), and CEO Fraud. Enforcer and Guardian do all of this silently in the background. That means workflows aren’t disrupted and there’s no impact on productivity. Employees can do what they were hired to do without security getting in the way. Tessian bolsters training, complements rule-based solutions, and helps reinforce the policies security teams have worked so hard to create and embed in their organizations. That’s why so many Financial Services firms have adopted Tessian’s technology, including: Man Group Evercore BDO Affirm Armstrong Watson JTC DC Advisory Many More

Data is valuable currency. Don’t believe us? Data brokering is a $200 billion industry…and this doesn’t even include the data that’s sold on the dark web.  This data could include anything from email addresses to financial projections, and the consequences of this data being leaked can be far-reaching. Data can be leaked in a number of ways, but when it’s stolen, we call it data exfiltration. You may also hear it referred to as data theft, data exportation, data extrusion, and data exfil.

This article will explore what data exfiltration is, how it works, and how you can avoid the fines, losses, and reputational damage that can result from it. Types of data exfiltration Data exfiltration can involve the theft of many types of information, including: Usernames, passwords, and other credentials Confidential company data, such as intellectual property or business strategy documents Personal data about your customers, clients, or employees b Keys used to decrypt encrypted information Financial data, such as credit card numbers or bank account details Software or proprietary algorithms To understand how data exfiltration works, let’s consider a few different ways it can be exfiltrated.  ✉ Email  According to IT leaders, email is the number one threat vector. It makes sense.  Over 124 billion business emails are sent and received every day and employees spend 40% of their time on email, sharing memos, spreadsheets, invoices, and other sensitive information and unstructured data with people both in and outside of their organization.  Needless to say, it’s a treasure trove of information, which is why it’s so often used in data exfiltration attempts. But how? Insider threats can email data to their own, personal accounts or third-parties External bad actors targeting employees with phishing, spear phishing, or ransomware attacks. Note:96% of phishing attacks start via email. ⚡ To learn more about insider threats, check out this article: 11 Real Examples of Insider Threats  ⚡ For more information about phishing, click here: What is Spear Phishing? Targeted Phishing Attacks Explained 💻  Remote access Gaining remote access to a server, device, or cloud storage platform is another data exfiltration technique. An attacker can gain remote access to a company’s data assets via several methods, including: Hacking to exploit access vulnerabilities Using a “brute force” attack to determine the password Installing malware, whether via phishing or another method Using stolen credentials, whether obtained via a phishing attack or purchased on the dark web According to 2020 Verizon data, over 80% of “hacking” data exfiltration incidents involve brute force techniques or compromised user credentials. That’s why keeping passwords strong and safe is essential. Remote data exfiltration might occur without a company ever noticing. Consider the now infamous 2020 SolarWinds hack: the attackers installed malware on thousands of organizations’ devices, which silently exfiltrated data for months before being detected. 💾  Physical access  As well as using remote-access techniques, such as phishing and malware, attackers can simply upload sensitive data onto a laptop, USB drive, or another portable storage device, and walk it out of a company’s premises.. Physically stealing data from a business requires physical access to a server or device. That’s why this method of exfiltration is commonly associated with current or former employees. And it happens more frequently than you might think. One report shows that: 15% of all insiders exfiltrate data via USBs and 8% of external bad actors do the same 11% of all insiders exfiltrate data via laptops/tablets and 13% of external bad actors do the same Here’s an example: in 2020, a Russian national tried to persuade a Tesla employee to use a USB drive to exfiltrate insider data from the company’s Nevada premises. ⚡ We’ve rounded up a dozen examples of data exfiltration here: 12 Examples of Data Exfiltration.

How common is data exfiltration? So how significant a problem is data exfiltration, and why should your company take steps to prevent it? It’s hard to say how often data is successful exfiltrated from a company’s equipment or network. But we know that the cybercrime methods used to carry out data exfiltration are certainly on the increase. For example, phishing was the leading cause of complaints to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) in 2020. The FBI’s data suggests that phishing incidents more than doubled compared to the previous year. The FBI also reported that the number of recorded personal data breaches increased from around 38,000 to over 45,000 in 2020. Verizon’s 2020 data suggests that companies with more than 1000 employees were more likely to experience data exfiltration attempts—but that attacks against smaller companies were much more likely to succeed.  Verizon also noted that “the time required to exfiltrate data has been getting smaller,” but “the time required for an organization to notice that they have been breached is not keeping pace.” In other words, cybercriminals are getting quicker and harder to detect. Consequences of data exfiltration We’ve seen how data exfiltration, and cybercrime more generally, is becoming more common. But even if a company experiences one data exfiltration attack, the consequences can be devastating. There’s a lot at stake when it comes to the data in your company’s control. Here are some stats from IBM about the cost of a data breach: The average data breach costs $3.6 million The cost is highest for U.S. companies, at $8.6 million Healthcare is the hardest-hit sector, with companies facing an average loss of $7.1 million What are the causes of these phenomenal costs? Here are three factors: Containment: Hiring cybersecurity and identity fraud companies to contain a data breach is an expensive business—not to mention the thousands of hours that can be lost trying to determine the cause of a breach. Lawsuits: Many companies face enormous lawsuits for losing customer data. Trends suggest a continuing increase in data-breach class action cases through 2021. Penalties: Laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) enable regulators to impose significant fines for personal data breaches.

How to prevent data exfiltration Understanding the form, causes, and consequences of data exfiltration is important. But what’s the best way to prevent data exfiltration? 🎓 Staff training Business leaders know the importance of helping their employees understand information security.  Staff training can help your staff spot some of the less sophisticated phishing attacks and learn the protocol for reporting a data breach. However, while staff training is important, it’s not sufficient to prevent data exfiltration. Remember these words from the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC): “No training package (of any type) can teach users to spot every phish. Spotting phishing emails is hard.” 🚫 Blocking or blacklisting To prevent data exfiltration attempts, some organizations block or blacklist certain domains or activities. This approach involves blocking certain email providers (like Gmail), domains, or software (like DropBox) that are associated with cyberattacks. However, this blunt approach impedes employee productivity. Blacklisting fails to account for the dynamic nature of modern work, where employees need to work with many different stakeholders via a broad variety of mediums. 💬 Labeling and tagging sensitive data Another data loss prevention (DLP) strategy is to label and tag sensitive data. When DLP software notices tagged data moving outside of your company’s network, this activity can be flagged or prevented. However, this approach relies entirely on employees tagging data correctly. Given how much data organizations handle, the manual process of tagging isn’t viable—employees may label incorrectly or not label sensitive at all. 🔒 Email data loss prevention (DLP) Email is a crucial communication method for almost every business. But, as we’ve seen, it’s also a key way for fraudsters and criminals to gain access to your company’s valuable data. According to Tessian platform data, employees send nearly 400 emails a month. In an organization with 1,000 employees, that’s 400,000 possible data breaches each month. That’s why security-focused organizations seek to lock down this critical vulnerability by investing in email-specific DLP software. ⚡ Want to learn more about email DLP? We cover everything you need to know here: What is Email DLP? Complete Overview of DLP on Email. How does Tessian prevent data exfiltration? Tessian uses stateful machine learning to prevent data exfiltration on email by turning an organization’s own data into its best defense against inbound and outbound email security threats.   Our Human Layer Security platform understands human behavior and relationships, enabling it to automatically detect and prevent anomalous and dangerous activity like data exfiltration attempts and targeted phishing attacks.  To learn more about how Tessian detects and prevents data exfiltration attempts, check out our customer stories or talk to one of our experts today.

While phishing, ransomware, and brute force attacks tend to make headlines, misdirected emails (emails sent to the wrong person) are actually a much bigger problem. In fact, in organizations with 1,000 employees, at least 800 emails are sent to the wrong person every year. That’s two a day. You can find more insights in The Psychology of Human Error and The State of Data Loss Prevention 2020.  Are you surprised? Most people are. That’s why we’ve rounded up this list of 11 real-world (recent) examples of data breaches caused by misdirected emails. And, if you skip down to the bottom, you’ll see how you can prevent misdirected emails (and breaches!) in your organization.  If you’re looking for a bit more background, check out these two articles: What is a Misdirected Email? Consequences of Sending an Email to the Wrong Person 11 examples of data breaches caused by misdirected emails  1. University support service mass emails sensitive student information University and college wellbeing services deal with sensitive personal information, including details of the health, beliefs, and disabilities of students and their families.  Most privacy laws impose stricter obligations on organizations handling such sensitive personal information—and there are harsher penalties for losing control of such data. So imagine how awful the Wellbeing Adviser at the University of Liverpool must have felt when they emailed an entire school’s worth of undergraduates with details about a student’s recent wellbeing appointment. The email revealed that the student had visited the Adviser earlier that day, that he had been experiencing ongoing personal difficulties, and that the Adviser had advised the student to attend therapy. A follow-up email urged all the recipients to delete the message “immediately” and appeared to blame the student for providing the wrong email address. One recipient of the email reportedly said: “How much harder are people going to find it actually going to get help when something so personal could wind up in the inbox of a few hundred people?” 2. Trump White House emails Ukraine ‘talking points’ to Democrats Remember in 2019, when then-President Donald Trump faced accusations of pressuring Ukraine into investigating corruption allegations against now-President Joe Biden? Once this story hit the press, the White House wrote an email—intended for Trump’s political allies—setting out some “talking points” to be used when answering questions about the incident (including blaming the “Deep State media”). Unfortunately for the White House, they sent the email directly to political opponents in the Democratic Party. White House staff then attempted to “recall” the email. If you’ve ever tried recalling an email, you’ll notice that it doesn’t normally work.  Recalling an email only works if the recipient is on the same exchange server as you—and only if they haven’t read the email. Looking for information on this? Check out this article: You Sent an Email to the Wrong Person. Now What? Unsurprisingly, this was not the case for the Democrats who received the White House email, who subsequently leaked it on Twitter.  I would like to thank @WhiteHouse for sending me their talking points on how best to spin the disastrous Trump/Zelensky call in Trump’s favor. However, I will not be using their spin and will instead stick with the truth. But thanks though. — US Rep Brendan Boyle (@RepBrendanBoyle) September 25, 2019 3. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade  leaked 1,000 citizens’ email addresses On September 30, 2020, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) announced that the personal details of over 1,000 citizens were exposed after an employee failed to use BCC. So, who were the citizens Australians who have been stuck in other countries since inbound flights have been limited (even rationed) since the outbreak of COVID-19. The plan was to increase entry quotas and start an emergency loans scheme for those in dire need. Those who had their email addresses exposed were among the potential recipients of the loan. Immediately after the email was sent, employees at DFAT tried to recall the email, and event requested that recipients delete the email from their IT system and “refrain from any further forwarding of the email to protect the privacy of the individuals concerned.” 4. Serco exposes contact traces’ data in email error  In May 2020, an employee at Serco, a business services and outsourcing company, accidentally cc’d instead of bcc’ing almost 300 email addresses. Harmless, right? Unfortunately not.  The email addresses – which are considered personal data – belonged to newly recruited COVID-19 contact tracers. While a Serco spokesperson has apologized and announced that they would review and update their processes, the incident nonetheless has put confidentiality at risk and could leave the firm under investigation with the ICO.  5. Sonos accidentally exposes the email addresses of hundreds of customers in email blunder  In January 2020, 450+ email addresses were exposed after they were (similar to the example above) cc’d rather than bcc’d.  Here’s what happened: A Sonos employee was replying to customers’ complaints. Instead of putting all the email in BCC, they were CC’d, meaning that every customer who received the email could see the personal email addresses of everyone else on the list.  The incident was reported to the ICO and is subject to potential fines.

6. Gender identity clinic leaks patient email addresses In September 2019, a gender identity clinic in London exposed the details of close to 2,000 people on its email list after an employee cc’d recipients instead of bcc’ing them. Two separate emails were sent, with about 900 people cc’d on each.  While email addresses on their own are considered personal information, it’s important to bear in mind the nature of the clinic. As one patient pointed out, “It could out someone, especially as this place treats people who are transgender.”  The incident was reported to the ICO who is currently assessing the information provided. But, a similar incident may offer a glimpse of what’s to come.  In 2016, the email addresses of 800 patients who attended HIV clinics were leaked because they were – again – cc’d instead of bcc’d. An NHS Trust was £180,000. Bear in mind, this fine was issued before the introduction of GDPR. 7. University mistakenly emails 430 acceptance letters, blames “human error” In January 2019, The University of South Florida St. Petersburg sent nearly 700 acceptance emails to applicants. The problem? Only 250 of those students had actually been accepted. The other 400+ hadn’t. While this isn’t considered a breach (because no personal data was exposed) it does go to show that fat fingering an email can have a number of consequences.  In this case, the university’s reputation was damaged, hundreds of students were left confused and disappointed, and the employees responsible for the mistake likely suffered red-faced embarrassment on top of other, more formal ramifications. The investigation and remediation of the incident also will have taken up plenty of time and resources.  8. Union watchdog accidentally leaked secret emails from confidential whistleblower In January 2019, an official at Australia’s Registered Organisations Commission (ROC) accidentally leaked confidential information, including the identity of a whistleblower. How? The employee entered an incorrect character when sending an email. It was then forwarded to someone with the same last name – but different first initial –  as the intended recipient.  The next day, the ROC notified the whistleblower whose identity was compromised and disclosed the mistake to the Office of the Australian Information commissions as a potential privacy breach. 9. Major Health System Accidentally Shares Patient Information Due to Third-Party Software for the Second Time This Year In May 2018 Dignity Health – a major health system headquartered in San Francisco that operates 39 hospitals and 400 care centers around the west coast – reported a breach that affected 55,947 patients to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  So, how did it happen? Dignity says the problem originated from a sorting error in an email list that had been formatted by one of its vendors. The error resulted in Dignity sending emails to the wrong patients, with the wrong names. Because Dignity is a health system, these emails also often contained the patient’s doctor’s name. That means PII and Protect health information (PHI) was exposed.  10. Inquiry reveals the identity of child sexual abuse victims This 2017 email blunder earned an organization a £200,000 ($278,552) fine from the ICO. The penalty would have been even higher if the GDPR has been in force at the time. When you look at the detail of this incident, it’s easy to see why the ICO wanted to impose a more severe fine. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) sent a Bcc email to 90 recipients, all of whom were involved in a public hearing about child abuse.  Sending a Bcc means none of the recipients can see each other’s details/ But the sender then sent a follow-up email to correct an error—using the “To” field by mistake. The organization made things even worse by sending three follow-up emails asking recipients to delete the original message—one of which generated 39 subsequent “Reply all” emails in response. The error revealed the email addresses of all 90 recipients and 54 people’s full names.  But is simply revealing someone’s name that big of a deal? Actually, a person’s name can be very sensitive data—depending on the context. In this case, IICSA’s error revealed that each of these 54 people might have been victims of child sexual abuse. 11. Boris Johnson’s dad’s email blunder nearly causes diplomatic incident Many of us know what it’s like to be embarrassed by our dad.  Remember when he interrogated your first love interest? Or that moment your friends overheard him singing in the shower. Or when he accidentally emailed confidential information about the Chinese ambassador to the BBC. OK, maybe not that last one. That happened to the father of U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in February 2020. Johnson’s dad, Stanley Johnson, was emailing British officials following a meeting with Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming. He wrote that Liu was “concerned” about a lack of contact from the Prime Minister to the Chinese state regarding the coronavirus outbreak. The Prime Minister’s dad inexplicably copied the BBC into his email, providing some lucky journalists with a free scoop about the state of U.K.-China relations. It appears the incident didn’t cause any big diplomatic issues—but we can imagine how much worse it could have been if Johnson had revealed more sensitive details of the meeting.

Prevent misdirected emails (and breaches) with Tessian Guardian Regardless of your region or industry, protecting customer, client, and company information is essential. But, to err is human. So how do you prevent misdirected emails? With machine learning.  Tessian turns an organization’s email data into its best defense against human error on email. Our Human Layer Security technology understands human behavior and relationships and automatically detects and prevents emails from being sent to the wrong person. Yep, this includes typos, accidental “reply alls” and cc’ing instead of bcc’ing. Tessian Guardian can also detect when you’ve attached the wrong file. Interested in learning more about how Tessian can help prevent accidental data loss and data exfiltration in your organization? You can read some of our customer stories here or book a demo.

Over the past two years, 90% of the world’s data has been generated. And, as the sheer volume of data continues to grow, organizations are becoming more and more susceptible to data exfiltration.  But, why would someone want to exfiltrate data? Data is valuable currency. From an e-commerce business to a manufacturing company, organizations across industries hold sensitive information about the business, its employees, customers, and clients. What is data exfiltration? Simply put, data exfiltration indicates the movement of sensitive data from inside the organization to outside without authorization. This can either be done accidentally or deliberately. The consequences of data exfiltration aren’t just around lost data. A breach means reputational damage, lost customer trust, and fines. The best way to illustrate the different types of data exfiltration and the impact these incidents have on businesses is with examples. Examples of data exfiltration  When it comes to data exfiltration, there are countless motives and methods. But, you can broadly group attempts into two categories: data exfiltration by someone within the organization, for example, a disgruntled or negligent employee, and data exfiltration by someone outside the organization; for example, a competitor.  Data exfiltration by insiders Data exfiltration by an insider indicates that company data has been shared by a member of the company to people (or organizations) outside of the company.   While most organizations have security software and policies in place to prevent insider threats from moving data outside of the office environment and outside of company control, insiders have easy access to company data, may know workarounds, and may have the technical know-how to infiltrate “secure” systems.  Here are six examples of data exfiltration by insiders:  Over the course of 9 months, an employee at Anthem Health Insurance forwarded 18,500 members records’ to a third-party vendor. These records included Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like social security numbers, last names, and dates of birth. After exfiltrating nearly 100 GB of data from an unnamed financial company that offered loan services to Ukraine citizens, an employee’s computer equipment was seized. Police later found out the suspect was planning on selling the data to a representative of one of his former employer’s competitors for $4,000.  Not all examples of data exfiltration are malicious, though. Some breaches happen inadvertently, like when an employee leaving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) accidentally downloaded data for 44,000 FDIC customers onto a personal storage device and took it out of the agency.  Jean Patrice Delia exfiltrated over 8,000 files from his employer, General Electric (GE), over eight years. Delia hoped to set up a rival company using insider secrets.The FBI investigation into Delia’s scam began in 2016. Details released in July 2020 showed how Delia persuaded a GE IT administrator to grant him privileged systems access — and emailed commercially-sensitive documents to a co-conspirator. On three occasions — in November 2018, January 2020, and October 2020 — Amazon has emailed customers to inform them that an insider has disclosed their personal information (usually email address) to a third party. Amazon hasn’t been very forthcoming about the details of these incidents, but there appears to be a pattern of insider data exfiltration emerging — which should be a serious concern for the company. After a data exfiltration near-miss, a Nevada court charged Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov with “conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer” in September 2020. Kriuchkov attempted to bribe a Tesla employee to “transmit malware” onto Tesla’s network via email or USB drive to “exfiltrate data from the network.” The FBI disrupted the scheme, which could have caused serious damage to one of the world’s leading companies. Exfiltration by outsiders Unlike exfiltration by insiders, exfiltration by outsiders indicates that someone from outside an organization has stolen valuable company data.  Here are six examples of data exfiltration by outsiders:  In 2014, eBay suffered a breach that impacted 145 million users. In this case, cybercriminals gained unauthorized access to eBay’s corporate network through a handful of compromised employee log-in credentials. At the time, it was the second-biggest breach of a U.S. company based on the number of records accessed by hackers.  Stealing login credentials isn’t the only way bad actors can gain access to a network. In 2019, malware was discovered on Wawa payment processing servers. This malware harvested the credit card data of over 30 million customers, including card number, expiration date, and cardholder name.  Did you know? 91% of data breaches start with a phishing email. While many phishing emails direct targets to wire money, pay an invoice, or provide bank account details, some request sensitive employee or client information, for example, W-2 forms. You can read more about Tax Day scams on our blog.  In February 2021, Talos Intelligence researchers discovered a new variant of the “Masslogger” Trojan. Masslogger is a perfect example of how cybercriminals can use malware to exfiltrate data from online accounts. This new Masslogger variant arrives via a phishing email with “a legitimate-looking subject line” containing a malicious email attachment. The Trojan targets platforms like Discord, Outlook, Chrome, and NordVPN, using “fileless” attack methods to exfiltrate credentials. In October 2020, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined British Airways (BA) £20 million ($28 million) after attackers exfiltrated customers’ data, including credit card numbers, names, and addresses. This massive data breach started in June 2018, when attackers installed malicious code on BA’s website. The ICO held BA fully responsible for the breach, which affected over 400,000 customers. Healthcare company Magellan Health discovered in April 2020 that hackers had exfiltrated sensitive customer data, including names, tax IDs, and Social Security Numbers. The breach started with a phishing email that an employee received five days earlier. This data exfiltration incident occurred just months after Magellan announced a similar phishing attack that exposed 50,000 customer records from its subsidiary companies Looking for more information about data exfiltration or data loss prevention? Follow these links: What is Data Exfiltration? Tips for Preventing Data Exfiltration Attacks What is Data Loss Prevention (DLP)? A Complete Overview of DLP on Email

Everyone makes mistakes at work. It could be double-booking a meeting, attaching the wrong document to an email, or misinterpreting directions from your boss. While these snafus may cause red-faced embarrassment, they generally won’t have any long-term consequences. But, what about mistakes that compromise cybersecurity? This happens more often than you might think. In fact, nearly half of employees say they’ve done it, and employees under 40 are among the most likely. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); In this article, we’ll focus on email mistakes. You’ll learn: The top five email mistakes that compromise cybersecurity How frequently these incidents happen What to do if you make a mistake on email

I sent an email to the wrong person At Tessian, we call this a misdirected email. If you’ve sent one, you’re not alone. 58% of people say they’ve done it and, according to Tessian platform data, at least 800 are fired off every year in organizations with over 1,000 people. It’s also the number one security incident reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under the GDPR. (More on the consequences related to data privacy below.) Why does it happen so often? Well, because it’s incredibly easy to do. It could be a simple typo (for example, sending an email to jon.doe@gmail.com instead of jan.doe@gmail.com) or it could be an incorrect suggestion from autocomplete.  What are the consequences of sending a misdirected email? While we’ve written about the consequences of sending an email to the wrong person in this article, here’s a high-level overview:  Embarrassment  Fines under compliance standards like GDPR and CCPA Lost customer trust and increased churn Job loss Revenue loss Damaged reputation

Real-world example of a misdirected email In 2019, the names of 47 claimants who were the victims of sexual abuse were leaked in an email from the program administrator after her email client auto-populated the wrong email address.  While the program administrator is maintaining that this doesn’t qualify as a data leak or breach, the recipient of the email – who worked in healthcare and understands data privacy requirements under HIPAA – continues to insist that the 47 individuals must be notified.  As of September 2020, they still haven’t been. I attached the wrong file to an email Employees can do more than just send an email to the wrong person. They can also send the wrong file(s) to the right person. We call this a misattached file and, like fat fingering an email, it’s easy to do. Two files could have similar names, you may not attach the latest version of a document, or you might click on the wrong file entirely.  What are the consequences of sending a misattached file? As you may have guessed, the consequences are the same as the consequences of sending a misdirected email. Of course, the consequences depend entirely on what information was contained in the attachment. If it’s a presentation containing financial projections for the wrong client or a spreadsheet containing the PII of customers, you have a problem.  Real-world example of sending the wrong attachment A customer relations advisor at Caesars Entertainment UK – a part of Caesars Entertainment – was sending emails to the casino’s VIPs. In the emails, the employee was meant to attach a customized invitation to an event. But, in one email, the employee accidentally attached the wrong document, which was a spreadsheet containing personal information related to some of their top 100 customers.   Luckily, they also spelled the email address incorrectly, so it was never actually sent.  Charles Rayer, Group IT Director, details the incident – and explains why this prompted him to invest in Tessian Guardian – in a Q&A.  You can watch the interview here. I accidentally hit “reply all” or cc’ed someone instead of bcc’ing them Like sending a misdirected email, accidentally hitting “reply all” or cc instead of bcc are both easy mistakes to make.  What are the consequences of hitting “reply all” or cc instead of bcc? As you may have guessed, the consequences are the same as the consequences of sending a misdirected email. And, importantly, the consequences depend entirely on what information was contained in, or attached to, the email. For example, if you drafted a snarky response to a company-wide email and intended to send it to a single co-worker but ended up firing it off everyone, you’ll be embarrassed and may worry about your professional credibility.  But, if you replace that snarky response with a spreadsheet containing medical information about employees, you’ll have to report the data loss incident which could have long-term consequences. Real-world example of hitting “reply all” In 2018, an employee at the Utah Department of Corrections accidentally sent out a calendar invite for her division’s annual potluck. Harmless, right? Wrong. Instead of sending the invite to 80 people, it went to 22,000; nearly every employee in Utah government. While there were no long-term consequences (i.e., it wasn’t considered a data loss incident or breach) it does go to show how easily data can travel and land in the wrong hands.  Real-world example of cc’ing someone instead of bcc’ing them On January 21, 2020, 450 customer email addresses were inadvertently exposed after they were copied, rather than blind copied, into an email. The email was sent by an employee at speaker-maker Sonos and, while it was an accident, under GDPR, the mistake is considered a potential breach.  I fell for a phishing scam According to Tessian research, 1 in 4 employees has clicked on a phishing email. But, the odds aren’t exactly in our favor. In 2019, 22% of breaches in 2019 involved phishing…and 96% of phishing attacks start on email. (You can find more Phishing Statistics here.) Like sending an email to the wrong person, it’s easy to do, especially when we’re distracted, stressed, or tired. But, it doesn’t just come down to psychology. Phishing scams are getting harder and harder to detect as hackers use increasingly sophisticated techniques to dupe us.  !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); What are the consequences of falling for a phishing scam? Given the top five “types” of data that are compromised in phishing attacks (see below), the consequences of a phishing attack are virtually limitless. Identify theft. Revenue loss. Customer churn. A wiped hardrive. But, the top five “types” of data that are compromised in a phishing attack are: Credentials (passwords, usernames, pin numbers) Personal data (name, address, email address) Internal data (sales projections, product roadmaps)  Medical (treatment information, insurance claims) Bank (account numbers, credit card information) Real-world example of a successful phishing attack In August 2020, The SANS institute – a global cybersecurity training and certifications organization – revealed that nearly 30,000 accounts of PII were compromised in a phishing attack that convinced an end-user to install a self-hiding and malicious Office 365 add-on. While no passwords or financial information were compromised and all the affected individuals have been notified, the breach goes to show that anyone – even cybersecurity experts – can fall for phishing scams. But, most phishing attacks have serious consequences. According to one report, 60% of organizations lose data. 50% have credentials or accounts compromised. Another 50% are infected with ransomware. 35% experience financial losses. I sent an unauthorized email As a part of a larger cybersecurity strategy, most organizations will have policies in place that outline what data can be moved outside the network and how it can be moved outside the network. Generally speaking, sending data to personal email accounts or third-parties is a big no-no. At Tessian, we call these emails “unauthorized” and they’re sent 38x more than IT leaders estimate. Tessian platform data shows that nearly 28,000 unauthorized emails are sent in organizations with 1,000 employees every year.  So, why do people send them? It could be well-intentioned. For example, sending a spreadsheet to your personal email address to work over the weekend. Or, it could be malicious. For example, sending trade secrets to a third-party in exchange for a job opportunity.  What are the consequences of sending an unauthorized email Whether well-intentioned or malicious, the consequences are the same: if the email contains data, it could be considered a data loss incident or even a breach. In that case, the consequences include: Lost data Lost intellectual property Revenue loss Losing customers and/or their trust Regulatory fines Damaged reputation No sensitive data involved? The consequences will depend on the organization and existing policies. But, you should (at the very least) expect a warning.  Real-world example of an unauthorized email In 2017, an employee at Boeing shared a spreadsheet with his wife in hopes that she could help solve formatting issues. While this sounds harmless, it wasn’t. The personal information of 36,000 employees was exposed, including employee ID data, places of birth, and accounting department codes. You can find more real-word examples of “Insider Threats” in this article: Insider Threats: Types And Real-World Examples How can I avoid making mistakes on email? The easiest answer is: be vigilant. Double-check who you’re sending emails to and what you’re sending. Make sure you understand your company’s policies when it comes to data. Be cautious when responding to requests for information or money.  But vigilance alone isn’t enough. To err is human and, as we said at the beginning of this article, everyone makes mistakes.  That’s why to prevent email mistakes, data loss, and successful targeted attacks, organizations need to implement email security solutions that prevent human error. That’s exactly what Tessian does. Powered by machine learning, our Human Layer Security technology understands human behavior and relationships. Tessian Guardian automatically detects and prevents misdirected emails Tessian Enforcer automatically detects and prevents data exfiltration attempts Tessian Defender automatically detects and prevents spear phishing attacks Importantly, Tessian’s technology automatically updates its understanding of human behavior and evolving relationships through continuous analysis and learning of the organization’s email network. That means it gets smarter over time to keep you protected, always.  Interested in learning more about how Tessian can help prevent email mistakes in your organization? You can read some of our customer stories here or book a demo.

This year, Tessian released four research reports, covering topics like the cybersecurity skills gap, social engineering, insider threats, and remote-working.  Now, looking back on the year, we wanted to highlight some of the most relevant insights for security leaders and the larger industry.  If you want more information about any individual insight, download the full report or check out the other suggested resources listed throughout.  Opportunity in Cybersecurity Report 2020 If the number of women working in cybersecurity rose to equal that of men, we’d see a $30.4 billion boost to the industry’s economic contribution in the US and a £12.6 billion boost in the UK. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); 66% of women agree there is a gender bias problem in the cybersecurity industry. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); 51% of women say that a more accurate representation of the industry in the media would encourage new entrants. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js");

93% of women in cybersecurity feel secure in their roles. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); In addition to surveying hundreds of women currently working in cybersecurity, we also interviewed over a dozen female practitioners with titles ranging from CISO to backend Python engineer. Read their profiles here. 

The State of Data Loss Prevention 2020  Employees exfiltrate data on email 38x more than IT leaders estimate. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); 91% of IT leaders trust their employees to follow safe data practices while working from home….but nearly half (48%) of employees say they’re less likely to follow safe data practices when working from home. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); IT leaders say that the #1 consequence of a data breach is lost customers/lost customer trust. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); At least 800 emails are sent to the wrong person every year in organizations with 1,000+ employees. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); Looking for industry-specific information about DLP? Read At a Glance: Data Loss Prevention in Healthcare and DLP in Financial Services.

The Psychology of Human Error 43% of people have made mistakes at work that compromise cybersecurity…

And younger workers are 5x times more likely to make such mistakes. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); A third of workers (33%) rarely or never think about cybersecurity when at work. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); 58% have sent an email to the wrong person at work, and 1/5 companies have lost a customer following a misdirected email. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); Wondering why people make mistakes? Jeff Hancock, Professor of Communication at Stanford University and contributor to this report, discusses the psychology of human error in this panel discussion: Why People Fall for Social Engineering in a Crisis. 

The Future of Hybrid Work Phishing was the leading cause of security incidents when employees worked remotely (and email traffic increased by 129% at the start of lockdown). !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); 75% of IT decision makers believe the future of work will be “remote” or “hybrid”. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); 78% of IT decision makers believe their company is at greater risk of insider threats when employees work remotely. !function(e,t,s,i){var n="InfogramEmbeds",o=e.getElementsByTagName("script"),d=o[0],r=/^http:/.test(e.location)?"http:":"https:";if(/^\/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=r+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var a=e.createElement("script");a.async=1,a.id=s,a.src=i,d.parentNode.insertBefore(a,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async","//e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); To learn more about the challenges security and IT leaders will have to overcome in hybrid-remote environments, read this article: 7 Concerns IT Leaders Have About Permanent Remote Working. 

Make sure you don’t miss the release of new research next year.  Connect with us on LinkedIn, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to see new content and get invited to industry events.

October 2020 has been another remarkable month in cybersecurity. And, since COVID-19 sent the world indoors and made us ever-more reliant on the internet, the importance of information security and data protection has never been more apparent. October saw numerous high-profile data breaches, cyberattacks, and online scams — but also brought us one of the biggest GDPR fines yet, an innovative solution to deepfake technology, and even more jostling between the US government and Chinese big tech. Let’s take a look at the biggest cybersecurity headlines of October 2020. Paying Cyberattack Ransoms Could Breach International Sanctions Rules New guidance from the US Treasury has big implications for companies hit by ransomware attacks from certain countries. (Companies affected by ransomware find their files encrypted — replaced by useless strings of seemingly random characters — with cybercriminals promising to return the data if the company pays a ransom.) Paying up might be the least-worst option where a company’s critical data is at stake…ut according to an October 1 US Treasury advisory note, paying cyberattack ransoms could violate legal rules on international sanctions. Businesses suffering a ransomware attack by hackers from a sanctioned country — like Iran, China, or Russia (where many such attacks do originate) — now face the threat of huge fines and legal action if they choose to buy back their files.  The Treasury’s advice reiterates what cybersecurity leaders have been saying for many years: in cybersecurity, prevention is far better than cure. Amazon Prime Day Sees Huge Spike in Phishing Scams With millions of consumers confined to their homes, this year’s Amazon Prime Day was a chance for millions of shoppers to grab a bargain — and an unmissable opportunity for cybercriminals to steal their personal information. October 8 research from Bolster detected over 800 “spoof” Amazon webpages in September (up from 50 in January), as fraudsters ramped up their phishing efforts in anticipation of the two-day Amazon Prime Day event, hosted October 13-14. Some sites looked near-identical to Amazon’s genuine web properties, with perfectly duplicated branding and convincing domain names. Unwary shoppers were asked for details such as their CVV2 code and social security number. See what advice Tessian co-founder and CEO, Tim Sadler, offered consumers in Tech Radar. FBI Warns of Ransomware Attacks Targeting Healthcare Providers On October 29, the FBI and other agencies issued a warning regarding an “increased and imminent cybercrime threat to US hospitals and healthcare providers.” The threats include a new tool named anchor_dns, a backdoor that can reportedly “evade typical network defense products,” and the Ryuk Ransomware. Among other measures, the FBI is advising healthcare providers to create business continuity plans, patch networked systems, and implement multi-factor authentication in preparation for an attack. According to Associated Press, 59 US healthcare systems have been attacked via ransomware so far this year. Looking for more information on why the healthcare industry is especially vulnerable? We talk more about The State of Data Loss Prevention in Healthcare in this article. UK Public Body Unable to Provide Services Follow “Serious Cyberattack” On October 14, Hackney London Borough Council, a UK local government body, announced that it had fallen victim to a “serious cyberattack.”  In an update two days later, the council revealed the extent of the damage. Among other things, the council was unable to accept rent payments, process planning applications, or pay some social security benefits. The council said it was “working hard to restore services, protect data, and investigate the attack,” but that services could remain unavailable for “some time.” UK Data Regulator Issues $26 Million Fine to Airline UK airline British Airways received a £20 million ($26 million) fine on October 17 for “failing to protect the personal and financial details of more than 400,000 of its customers.” The fine relates to a cyberattack suffered by the company in 2018. The Information Commissioner’s Office — the UK’s data protection authority — found that the airline had failed to limit access to data, had not undertaken sufficiently rigorous testing, and should have implemented multi-factor authentication on its employee and third-party accounts. The British Airways fine amounts to the fourth-largest GDPR fine of all time — but the airline actually got off relatively lightly, considering that the fine was initially touted as £183 million ($238 million).  To learn more about compliance standards like the GDPR (including the largest breaches and fines to-date) check out The CEO’s Guide to Data Protection and Compliance. Adobe Launches Content Authenticity Initiative Tool to Fight Deepfakes As video and audio manipulation techniques become more accessible, cybersecurity and intelligence experts have been warning about a potential onslaught of deepfakes that could have an unprecedented impact on security, politics, and society. Not sure what a deepfake is? Read this article. Cybercriminals can use deepfake technology to create video or audio clips of high-profile and trusted individuals. Deepfakes have already been used in phishing attacks and could also be used for blackmail and disinformation campaigns. On October 20, Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative announced a new tool that will add “a secure layer of tamper-evident attribution data to photos, including the author’s name, location, and edit history” to help creatives authenticate their content. Once deepfakes are sufficiently convincing, there might be no way to distinguish them from genuine material. Adobe’s project marks a promising first step in this emerging security front. Hackers Discover 55 Vulnerabilities Across Apple’s Systems A group of hackers earned $300,000 via Apple’s bug bounty scheme after identifying 55 vulnerabilities across Apple’s infrastructure. The security issues included vulnerabilities that would have allowed an attacker to “(take) over a victim’s iCloud account,” “fully compromise an industrial control warehouse software used by Apple,” and “access management tools and sensitive resources.” The group said Apple had fully addressed the majority of vulnerabilities reported. Around 3 Million Credit Cards Compromised After Breach at US Restaurant Franchise On Oct 12, details of around 3 million credit cards were posted on the dark web following a huge data breach at US restaurant franchise Dickey’s Barbeque Pit. According to an investigation by Gemini Advisory, 156 of 469 Dickey’s outlets were involved in the breach, with the highest levels of exposure present in California. The details appear to have been stolen between July 2018 and August 2020. Given California’s strict data breach rules, including a private right of action under the California Consumer Privacy Act, Dickey’s could be liable for some eye-watering sums if the breach is found to have resulted from lax cybersecurity practices. Questions about the CCPA? We answer 13 of them in this article: CCPA FAQs: Your Guide to California’s New Privacy Law. Russia Planned to Launch 2020 Olympics Cyberattack The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, “conducted cyber reconnaissance against officials and organizations” involved in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, according to a UK government announcement on October 19. Russian cybercrime groups are alleged to have targeted “organizers, logistics services, and sponsors.” The Games were originally due to tale place this summer but were postponed due to COVID-19.  The UK government also revealed the full extent of Russia’s hacking campaign against the 2018 Winter Games, during which Russian hackers are alleged to have disguised themselves as Chinese and North Korean attackers to target the opening ceremony in Seoul, South Korea. ENISA 2020 Threat Landscape Report Shows Increase in Cyberattacks  The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) released its 2020 Threat Landscape Report on October 20, and cybersecurity leaders (unfortunately) won’t be surprised at its conclusion: cybercrime is on the increase. The report cites “a new norm,” triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the world is even more dependent on “a secure and reliable cyberspace.” ENISA found that the number of phishing victims “continues to grow,” that Business Email Compromise (BEC) resulted in “the loss of millions of euros,” and that state-sponsored actors are propagating “finely targeted and persistent attacks on high-value data.” If you’re a security leader looking for solutions to these problems, click here to learn more about how Tessian Defender detects advanced impersonation attacks that slip past SEGs, native features, and legacy tools. Researcher Breaches US President’s Twitter Account By Guessing Password Dutch “ethical hacker” Victor Gevers found himself in control of Donald Trump’s Twitter account on October 16 after guessing the US president’s password. Trump’s Twitter account has over 87 million followers and is frequently used to deliver messages of international importance. Gevers said he correctly guessed the password, “maga2020!”, after seven attempts. The incident reveals that the president was using a simple, easy-to-guess password, and that he had multi-factor authentication disabled. Rectifying either of these two basic security errors would have prevented unauthorized access to the account. Overruling of WeChat Ban Denied by California Judge Another month, another development in the long-running battle between the US government and Chinese tech firms. On October 23, California struck a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict WeChat — a Chinese app used for currency transfers, social networking, and instant messaging. In September, the US Department of Commerce ordered Apple and Google to stop distributing WeChat via their app stores, citing security issues. The order was blocked in California following a legal challenge by WeChat. The US Justice Department brought further evidence and asked the court to reverse its WeChat ruling. The court declined to change its decision, meaning that the Commerce Department’s banning order will remain unenforced in California — despite the federal government’s allegations regarding WeChat’s security issues.  Finnish Therapy Center Hacked, Exposing Patient Data One of the most shocking data breaches of 2020 was brought to light on October 24, when Finnish psychotherapy center Vastaamo revealed a hack that compromised hundreds of patient records. The highly sensitive nature of the breach means that it is being taken extremely seriously. Finland’s interior minister summoned a cabinet meeting to determine how best to respond to the breach, promising “speedy crisis help” to the affected individuals. The hackers are demanding a ransom in exchange for the return of the files, which were reportedly accessed between November 2018 and March 2019. The ransomware attack further suggests that businesses worldwide lack proper cybersecurity infrastructure — even when handling highly sensitive and valuable data. That’s all for this month. If we missed anything, please email madeline.rosenthal@tessian.com and stay tuned for the next roundup. Don’t forget: You can easily share this on social media via the buttons at the top right of this post. 

Company: Cordaan Industry: Healthcare Seats: 6,300 Solutions: Guardian, Enforcer, Defender  About Cordaan Cordaan – one of the largest healthcare providers in Amsterdam – provides care to over 20,000 people from 120 locations across Amsterdam. They do this with the help of 6,000 employees and more than 2,500 volunteers. Cordaan also works in association with research institutes and social organizations.  To help protect the organization’s people, sensitive data, and networks, Cordaan has deployed Tessian Guardian, Enforcer, and Defender to protect over 6,300 employees on email.  Tessian solves three key problems for Cordaan, which we explore in detail in the video below. Keep reading for a summary of the discussion. Problem: Healthcare employees are especially vulnerable to inbound attacks  When it comes to inbound attacks like spear phishing and business email compromise, the healthcare industry is among the most targeted. It also has the highest costs associated with data breaches. Why? According to Cas de Bie, the Dutch healthcare provider’s Chief Information Officer, it’s not just because organizations operating in this industry handle highly sensitive data. It also has a lot to do with the very nature of the work: helping people. 

Combine this empathetic approach with the stress of a global pandemic, and you’re left with an incredibly vulnerable workforce. With Tessian, Cas is now confident Tessian will identify spear phishing emails before his employees respond to them and that employees’ workflow won’t be disrupted in the process.  When talking about inbound attacks, Cas said “It’s all about awareness. While people probably do know what they’re supposed to do when it comes to email security, it’s different in real life. It’s hard to decide in the moment. Of course, they don’t do it on purpose. They want to make the right decision. Tessian helps them do that.” Problem: Reactive and rule-based solutions weren’t preventing human error on email in the short or long-term To ensure GDPR-compliance, Cordaan prioritized investment in privacy and security solutions. But, according to Cas, “standard” email security, spam filtering solutions, and encryption alone just weren’t enough. They weren’t keeping malicious emails out of inboxes, and they weren’t preventing data loss from insiders. They also weren’t doing anything to improve employee security reflexes in the long-term. 

So, to level-up Cordaan’s email security, Cas was looking for a solution that was: Technologically advanced User-friendly Proactive With Tessian, he found all three. Powered by contextual machine learning and artificial intelligence, our solutions can detect and prevent threats and risky behavior before they become incidents or breaches. How? With the in-the-moment warnings – triggered by anomalous email activity – that look something like this.

These warnings help nudge well-intentioned employees towards safer behavior and ensure data stays within Cordaan’s perimeter. And, because Tessian works silently in the background and analyzes inbound and outbound emails in milliseconds, it’s invisible to employees until they see a warning.   This was incredibly important to Cas, who said that “The added value of Tessian is that it influences behavior. That really resonated with the board and helped me make a strong business case. While I can’t show how cybersecurity creates revenue, I can show – via a risk management calculation – the potential fines we could avoid because of our investment in Tessian”.  Problem: Cordaan’s security team had limited visibility into – and control over – data loss incidents on email  While Cordaan had invested in other email security solutions, Cas and his team still lacked visibility into the frequency of data loss incidents on email. But, after deploying Tessian for a Proof of Value, the scope of the problem became crystal clear.

The reality is that employees do actually send unauthorized and misdirected emails more frequently than expected. (We explore this in detail in our report, The State of Data Loss Prevention 2020.) But, the good news is that this behavior can be influenced and corrected—all without access restrictions that make it harder (or impossible) for employees to do their jobs.  Cas explained it well, saying that “Of course there are things that we have to police and prohibit. But, most of the time, people aren’t doing things maliciously. So it’s nice that – with Tessian – we can take a more nuanced approach. We can influence behavior and help our employees do the right thing.” Learn more about how Tessian prevents human error on email Powered by machine learning, Tessian’s Human Layer Security technology understands human behavior and relationships. Tessian Guardian automatically detects and prevents misdirected emails Tessian Enforcer automatically detects and prevents data exfiltration attempts Tessian Defender automatically detects and prevents spear phishing attacks Importantly, Tessian’s technology automatically updates its understanding of human behavior and evolving relationships through continuous analysis and learning of an organization’s email network. That means it gets smarter over time to keep you protected, wherever and however your work. Interested in learning more about how Tessian can help prevent email mistakes in your organization? You can read some of our customer stories here or book a demo.

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