North Korean ‘IT Warriors’ and the Rise of Insider Threats: How MIND can protect against insider risks

The digital age has blurred geographical boundaries, allowing businesses to tap into a global talent pool. But this interconnectedness also brings new risks, as flagged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about North Korean IT workers. These individuals, dubbed "IT warriors," increasingly use fake identities to secure remote IT jobs at US-based companies, not to contribute but to steal sensitive data and intellectual property. This warning by the FBI highlights potential external threats and bad actors working as insiders to exfiltrate sensitive data, demanding a robust and modern approach to data protection for organizations.

These workers appear legitimate and often have the surroundings of an IT outsourcing company. These companies are as fake as the workers they provide. Authorities are working to take down these fraudulent companies' websites, but you can be sure more will pop up. The FBI recommends data monitoring and data loss prevention (DLP) controls to detect, identify and stop data leaks from these types of threats.

Once inside, they can exfiltrate code, proprietary data, and even customer information, potentially leading to:

• Financial losses: Data breaches can be incredibly costly, involving extortion, ransom payments, regulatory fines, legal fees and remediation efforts.
• Reputational damage: Losing sensitive data can erode customer trust and negatively impact a company's brand image.
• Intellectual property theft: Competitors could gain an unfair advantage if trade secrets or proprietary technology are stolen.
• Disruption of operations: Significant data loss events can disrupt business operations, leading to downtime and lost productivity.

Traditionally, companies have relied on DLP solutions to mitigate these risks. However, legacy DLP tools are struggling to keep pace with today's complex threat landscape. They often fail to:

• Discover all sensitive data: Legacy DLP tools often rely on predefined rules and patterns, making them ineffective at identifying sensitive data that doesn't fit these parameters.
• Accurately classify data: Manual classification is time-consuming and prone to errors, while automated classification in legacy tools can be narrow and unreliable, leading to numerous false positives.
• Enforce policies effectively: Cumbersome policies and enforcement workflows can lead to users finding workarounds, rendering the legacy DLP tools ineffective.

While data security posture management (DSPM) solutions have emerged to help locate and classify sensitive data, they typically lack the ability to find and classify unstructured data (e.g. business files), enforce policies and prevent data leakage. This leaves a critical gap in a company's security program.

To effectively combat evolving insider threats, a new approach is needed. MIND's modern DLP solution offers a comprehensive suite of capabilities to protect critical data from malicious insiders:

• Complete sensitive data discovery: MIND connects to all your data sources (SaaS apps, endpoints, on-premise file shares and emails) to identify sensitive data, regardless of format or location.
• Accurate and automatic classification: MIND AI is a multi-layer AI engine that classifies and categorizes sensitive data with high accuracy, significantly eliminating the need for manual intervention and the flood of false positives experienced with legacy DLP tools.
• Effective policy enforcement: MIND enforces policies in real time, preventing data leakage and ensuring compliance with regulations. It can also interact with end-users directly (within policy) to help educate and steer them toward the right data security actions.
• Complete audit trail: MIND provides a detailed lineage and audit trail of all data activity, enabling security teams to monitor and investigate potential threats. It can also highlight anomalous users with a consistently high risk of data leakage for closer inspection.

By combining these capabilities, MIND empowers organizations to proactively protect their data from malicious insiders without hindering productivity or stifling collaboration.

The threat of malicious insiders is real and growing. North Korean IT warriors are just one example of the sophisticated tactics being used to compromise sensitive data. Companies must adopt a proactive and comprehensive approach to data security.

MIND's modern DLP solution offers a powerful combination of advanced technology and user-friendly features to protect critical data from all types of insider threats. With MIND, businesses can embrace the benefits of a global workforce without compromising their security posture. By investing in robust data protection, organizations can create a secure future for themselves and their stakeholders.