How Can Secure Bots Protect Against Insider Attacks?

Do your employees recognize a security risk when they see it? Most companies attempt to educate employees on cybersecurity awareness. However, each day brings new challenges due to the human element of falling prey to phishing scams or manual errors.

Thankfully, there's a non-human ally that can keep your cybersecurity network secure. Software robots (bots), which don’t require sleep or lunch break, can now be deployed to be on duty night and day, guarding against vulnerabilities while humans attend to more meaningful work.

A world of security breaches

We've all heard the news of “Undisclosed number of financial accounts breached” or “Software maker hacked” or “Large payout in data breach settlement.” The list of headlines is endless. It’s important to note: The majority of data breaches within enterprises take place within the internal networks.

The drivers can mostly be attributed to a human element, and the results are devastating. According to a Ponemon Institute study, the cost and occurrence of malicious internal attacks are growing exponentially. How can your organization mitigate human errors, safeguard your network, and save costs in the process?

The problem: Protecting today’s data-filled environments

In today’s interconnected world, most companies are running applications within divisions that process vast amounts of data in the finance, legal, procurement, and human resources departments.

Many processes, such as quote-to-cash, procure-to-pay, claims processing, payroll automation, and insurance claims, have workflows that involve humans to process lots of confidential information. These systems interface with multiple fronts- and back-end systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP).

Every transaction requires proper credentials to log in to the system and access data, process data, and then update information.

Understanding the biggest risk to your business

Each industry faces a variety of threats. By understanding the most significant threat to your industry, you’ll be able to make better use of your cybersecurity budget and mitigate the risks. For example, abuse of privileged access, credentials, and stolen passwords open your organization to massive data breaches.

To complicate matters further, human action is required to interact with disparate systems. This provides a big front for malicious users to gain access to privileged data and misuse the information.

Cybercriminals are constantly developing new tactics to access your systems and data. What’s clear is too many organizations make their job easy.

A study by Preempt on leaked LinkedIn passwords showed that default password usage or a very simple password can easily be cracked. People can make mistakes. This is particularly alarming because when it comes to safeguards, many employees practice poor password hygiene.

Another challenge is the unintentional human error element that plays a big role in data errors. For example, a large multinational home mortgage funding company had to restate its unrealized gains by $1.1 billion due to “honest mistakes” made in a spreadsheet used in the implementation of a new accounting standard.

And that's only one example. There are many more instances of human error, many of which don't get reported publicly.

Making bots your first line of defense

One way to increase security is to leverage Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to augment human tasks that are repetitive. RPA can be tremendously valuable in reducing the risks associated with human errors and malicious intentions.

Automation bots can be built to access various systems with verified credentials. This reduces the number of users, along with passwords, that need to be managed and monitored. Securing authentication for the bots, such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Kerberos, and local authentication using the embedded Credential Vault, can be managed by using Active Directory.

Augmenting security with software bots can:

Eliminate unauthorized access and reduce theft of personally identifiable information
Reduce tampering of data and results by humans
Track and log all bot activity — in a secure log to ensure log data is not tampered with
Ensure compliance with logging bot activity tasks

Bots can assist humans to prevent security incidents

Every human worker needs to play his or her part in managing risks. Thankfully, RPA bots can also be used to assist humans with important activities that are repetitive.

New sophisticated bots with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities can now be deployed to enhance your security measures. Using cognitive bots eliminates the mistakes caused by human error — and significantly reduces the risks of data breaches from within your network.