Published Dec 01, 2021

The Real Cost of Insider Threats

Do you know the real cost of your insider threats on your company's critical information?

Insider threats are on the rise today and have the potential to affect companies of all sizes and in any sector. Both the frequency of attacks and the cost to remediate them have soared in the last few years¹. The oversharing or the mishandling of critical business assets can result in numerous setbacks apart from Information Security (InfoSec) ones, including legal defense costs and tarnished brand reputation. 

The Cost of Containment  

a real look at what different insider threat activities cost to remediate and how this can affect information security budgets

It takes an average of 77 days for companies to contain insider threat incidents¹. The faster containment takes place, the lower the cost. Studies show that incidents that take longer than 90 days to contain, cost $13.71 million on average, while incidents that take less than 30 days cost $7.12 million. 

a breakdown of insider threats as reported in the 2020 Cost of Insider Threats Global Report

Whether exposure was malicious or negligent, many incident costs and repercussions stem from the fact that companies have no foresight into insider threats. Companies tend to rely on small InfoSec teams who lack the resources to monitor extensive information flows and suspicious user sharing behaviors.  

Minimizing the Impact with Visibility 

Investing in the right tools and technology to minimize the costs associated with insider threats can save companies millions of dollars, and InfoSec professional a lot of headaches. 

Today, companies are turning to Cognni to pre-empt and minimize the impact of insider threats. Unlike information discovery tools, Cognni can autonomously map and categorize unregulated, critical information, creating a blueprint of your critical assets and providing insights into how information flows across your digital environment.

Cognni dashboard showing insider threats
With autonomous mapping and investigation capabilities, companies can use Cognni to understand where critical information is located, and who’s sharing it.

See Cognni’s Impact for Yourself

Having a tool like Cognni in your InfoSec arsenal can save you valuable time and money when dealing with insider threats. Understanding information and the context in which it moves throughout your company is the key to mitigating potential insider threats. 

Get a closer look at Cognni’s caliber and how our intelligent solutions can minimize insider threats to your company. Sign up for a 14-day free trial and experience Cognni’s impact first-hand! 

 

References

1) “2020 Cost of Insider Threats Global Report: Proofpoint US.” Proofpoint, Ponemon Institute, ObserveIT, IBM Security, 7 July 2021.

2) “Cost of Insider Threats: Global Report 2020.” IBM, Ponemon Institute, IBM Security, ObserveIT, 2021.