At a point in time, smart devices and robotics were common elements in the storyline of futuristic fictional novels. Today, those concepts are the modern norm across the technology industry. Similarly, in cybersecurity, pioneering professionals held on to seemingly far-fetched dreams where logs were easy to analyze, and false positives didn’t exist. While these challenges still exist, artificial intelligence (AI) is making these once far-fetched dreams the new norm in the security industry.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is used all around us and if you’ve used some sort of voice activated technology to make your life easier, then there was likely some element of AI involved. Some of the most notable examples include Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Tesla semi-autonomous vehicles. Individual consumers no longer have to fumble around in the dark to flip the light switch at home, manually search playlists for songs, or type in a password to get into smartphones.

Over the last century, our technology devices have gone from being clunky systems that require tons of human interaction, to modern machines that seem to have a mind of their own. Our phones can do things like autocomplete sentences before we finish typing, suggest purchases based on sites we’ve visited in the past, and even predict our schedules on any given day based on our prior habits. This is all possible due to the growth of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Gone are the days when our greatest inklings of insider threats were employees who never wanted to take vacation and did everything to avoid letting others see the financial records they were maintaining. Today, insider threats come in a concerning variety of forms with consequences often exceeding millions of dollars. As time passes, more industries than ever before are feeling the sting of security incidents and breaches stemming from their very own trusted employees and partners.

Ponemon’s 2019 State of Password and Authentication Security Behaviors Report highlights how inappropriate use of privileged password can give insiders the access they need. Ultimately, the malicious insider needs one thing to perform an act that hurts the organization – access.

The idea of your employees being solicited on the Dark Web isn’t a hypothetical; it’s real, it’s tempting, and it’s lucrative. We’ve written previously about the dangers of the Dark Web and why you need to be paying attention as an employer. One of the realities of the dark web is the issue of recruitment.

Recent findings report that on average, 96 percent of systems across all industry segments have been breached. While you should absolutely update your information security system and protocols to provide the best protection you can for your data, you should also know how to spot a data breach. Unfortunately the odds of escaping one aren’t in your favor, but you can increase your chances of spotting a breach quickly and containing any damage.

KPMG’s Fraud Barometer Says Most Crime is Perpetrated by Employees and Managers Already Inside Companies. The introspective look at the UK’s £1.2 billion in 2018 fraud cases by KPMG demonstrates the need to be mindful of insiders. Each year, professional services company KMPG puts out their annual Fraud Barometer report, providing readers with the state of corporate fraud.

The greatest risk to a company is actually its own employees. Malicious insiders can commit employee fraud in many different ways: data theft, timecard theft, and monetary/asset theft are just a few types of fraud to keep on your radar. Here are four tools and practices you can adopt to detect employee fraud should it happen in your organization.

Insiders keen on making money from the valuable data your organization holds need only use a TOR browser to connect with buyers, hackers, and everyone else who doesn’t have your organizations best interest at heart.