Preventing, Mitigating, and Managing Insider Threats

Any organization can be at risk from insider threats—generally employees who deliberately or inadvertently cause harm to the organization. In November 2012, the Conference Board hosted a meeting to explore the concept of insider threat and share best practices for identifying, preventing, mitigating, and managing this threat. Participants included senior executives from diverse management areas in some of Canada’s largest organizations. This briefing summarizes highlights from the meeting and from a survey of executives from over 100 organizations, which was used to inform discussions. It outlines certain employee behaviours that should raise red flags regarding potential threats to the organization, discusses how new tools and techniques (such as text-reading software), can be used to identify potential threats, and explores the legal aspects of collecting information on employees in order to manage threats. The briefing concludes by listing best practices for managing insider threats.