In the quest for robust cybersecurity, organizations often focus on external threats, building digital fortresses to keep malicious actors at bay. However, some of the most damaging threats originate from within. Insider threats, whether malicious or unintentional, can be incredibly difficult to detect and can lead to devastating consequences. The 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report highlights this ongoing challenge, revealing that insider threats were a factor in 34% of all breaches last year. This statistic underscores the critical need for a more sophisticated approach to mitigating this often-overlooked risk.
Visium’s TruContext platform offers a powerful solution for addressing the human factor in cybersecurity. By combining AI-powered user behavior analytics with a multi-layered graph database, TruContext can identify and neutralize insider threats before they escalate into a major incident. This blog will explore the complex nature of insider threats and explain how TruContext is helping organizations to build a more resilient and secure workforce.
The Insider Threat: A Complex and Evolving Challenge
Insider threats come in many forms. They can be malicious insiders who intentionally steal data or sabotage systems. They can be negligent insiders who accidentally expose sensitive information. Or they can be compromised insiders whose credentials have been stolen by an external attacker. This complexity makes insider threats incredibly difficult to detect. Traditional security tools, which often focus on external threats, are often blind to the subtle signs of an insider attack.
TruContext: Understanding the Human Factor with AI and Graph Analytics
TruContext provides a powerful solution to this challenge by providing a deep understanding of user behavior. By continuously monitoring user activity and comparing it to a baseline of normal behavior, TruContext can identify and alert on anomalous activity that may be indicative of an insider threat. For example, TruContext can detect when a user is accessing sensitive data that is outside of their normal job responsibilities, or when they are attempting to exfiltrate data to an unauthorized location.
Furthermore, TruContext‘s graph analytics capabilities can be used to visualize the relationships between users and data. This can help to identify potential conflicts of interest or to uncover hidden relationships that may be indicative of collusion. This deep contextual understanding is essential for effectively mitigating the risk of insider threats.
Real-World Example: The Rise of Business Email Compromise
Business email compromise (BEC) is a growing threat that often involves the use of compromised credentials. In a BEC attack, an attacker will gain access to a user’s email account and then use it to send fraudulent emails to other employees, customers, or partners. These attacks can be incredibly difficult to detect, as they often originate from a legitimate email account. TruContext can help to mitigate the risk of BEC attacks by identifying and alerting on anomalous email activity, such as a user sending an unusual number of emails to an external recipient or a sudden change in their email communication patterns.
Building a Culture of Security: A Proactive Approach
Mitigating the risk of insider threats is not just about technology. It is also about building a strong culture of security throughout the organization. This includes providing regular security awareness training, implementing strong access controls, and creating a clear and concise incident response plan. TruContext can support these efforts by providing the visibility and contextual intelligence needed to identify and address potential security weaknesses before they can be exploited.
Conclusion
The human factor is a critical component of any cybersecurity strategy. Insider threats, whether malicious or unintentional, can be incredibly damaging. To effectively mitigate this risk, organizations need to have a deep understanding of user behavior and the ability to identify and respond to anomalous activity in real-time. Visium’s TruContext platform provides a powerful solution to this challenge, enabling organizations to build a more resilient and secure workforce.
