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Successfully Navigating Identity Management Strategies

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For many CISOs, overseeing identity management represents a significant challenge and a substantial component of their broader security ecosystem. In a nod to its importance, the National Cyber Security Alliance even recently kicked off the first ever Identity Management Day. It is also central to a number of critical issues that urgently need a CISO’s attention, namely data access governance, data loss prevention and cloud application security.

When navigating the vital issue of identity, the top considerations include:

Data Access Governance

Data security spans two areas of organizational risk: unauthorized data use and privacy issues associated with authorized data processes. When evaluating an identity management strategy, it is imperative to start at a high level, which includes data access governance to limit access and meaningfully reduce the risk of loss or theft.

An effective end-to-end approach provides visibility and controls to identify risk and protect sensitive information across cloud and on-premise networks while also keeping digital communications compliant. This approach involves establishing a data governance program, which includes data inventory, data mapping, needs-based permissions and, ultimately, data retention and erasure. Critical components in overall data access considerations include understanding what data is being collected, where and how it is stored, who is accessing that data, protection mechanisms in transit and at rest, and how long the data is being retained.

Proper data access governance is essential to ensuring successful digital transformation as remote/hybrid work continues, both email and cloud apps remain core communication channels, and social media continues to drive business.

Data Loss Prevention

Protecting information both at rest and in motion are important elements of another identity management issue: data loss prevention (DLP). Data is lost due to negligent, compromised, or malicious users and it is important to approach DLP in manageable terms. For example, full data classification and discovery is idealistic for many. Complete reliance on both fronts is hard, if not impossible.

Traditional data loss prevention approaches, such as full data discovery, have arduous requirements and usually involve mandatory outsourcing for development and monitoring. In fact, many CISOs only want to tackle the DLP challenge once in their career.

Fortunately, modern strategies are available to manage DLP efforts that focus on protecting the most sensitive information in terms of content type, context, and user behavior. These include systems that issue accurate alerts, reduce investigation time, and focus security teams on risky user behavior rather than solely on classification violations.

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An approach that places an emphasis on user behavior, in addition to classification, is pivotal to identifying compromised accounts and phished users. Data does not lose itself, but proper DLP can stop bad actors and insider risks from siphoning critical assets.

Cloud Application Security

In a Cloud Security Alliance study of 200 IT professionals, 83% indicated that cloud security is a top area for improvement. This is not surprising in our current climate as CISOs are constantly struggling to ensure they have visibility and control over how users access and share sensitive data in the cloud. It only takes one compromised account to expose an organization to significant risk.

For example, according to a 2020 Proofpoint analysis of over 20 million cloud account users and thousands of cloud tenants across North America and Europe, attackers are increasingly abusing legitimate OAuth authorization apps to exfiltrate data and maintain persistence on specific cloud resources after compromising an account.

Over the last year, threat actors targeted 95% of organizations with cloud account compromise attempts, and more than half of organizations were successfully compromised at least once. Discovering cloud apps and reducing shadow-based IT—including third-party OAuth authorization apps—helps limit accessing and sharing data to only authorized users.

Every cloud app security broker (CASB) strategy needs to address how individuals handle data and the threats targeting them. It is imperative that threat visibility and adaptive controls extend to the most attacked people and operate effectively in the cloud.

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This includes deployment of multifactor authentication solutions, the ability to detect suspicious login attempts, and user education.
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Also, deployed cloud DLP policies need to align with those for email and on-premises file repositories. Finally, DLP incident management should be centralized and span across cloud apps.

The issue of identity management will continue to play a central role in security strategies for years to come. Focusing on data access governance, modern DLP and effective cloud app security can help significantly reduce an organization’s risk.

Combating Fraudulent COVID Unemployment Claims

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As federal and state officials scramble to send unemployment and stimulus funds to help people hit hard by COVID-19 business shutdowns, it has become a perfect storm for cyber fraud.

The payments are an easy target for cybercriminals as hackers and cyber gangs around the world have started to file unemployment claims use stolen identities. Some criminals claim benefits in the names of dead or incarcerated people, while others set up shell companies, “hiring and firing” fictitious employees to collect payments.

For example, cyber gangs in Nigeria have stolen millions in benefits from multiple states using hacked names, Social Security numbers and other information sold for as little as two dollars each on the dark web. In New York, a man was charged with filing more than $1.4 million in false COVID-19 unemployment claims, using the stolen identities of over 250 unknowing victims. According to U.S. attorneys, he was caught in part because he used the same IP address and security question and answer—the name of his family dog, Benji—to submit the applications.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates fraudsters may already have stolen at least $63 billion through phony jobless claims, while other reports say the losses could be as high as $200 billion. In addition, unsuspecting victims are at risk of receiving surprise tax bills because cybercriminals stole their identities and filed fraudulent claims for COVID-19 unemployment payments.

Watch Closely for Signs of Fraud

The Federal Trade Commission warns that unemployment fraud puts workers at additional risk of identity theft crimes including tax fraud. What can you do to help protect your employees?

Unemployment fraud is often uncovered when employers are notified by state officials that employees have applied for benefits. If they are still working, they may be the victim of identity theft.

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Be alert to the signs of cybercrimes and unemployment fraud. Contact your human resources department or tax administrator and ask them to look carefully at any notices or requests they receive from state unemployment officials. If you get a report about unemployment benefits that an employee did not request or receive, contact the employment division of your state labor department. Unemployment fraud is so widespread that most states have set up special procedures to deal with these situations.

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Warn Your Employees

Let employees know that unemployment scams are a serious problem. Identity theft can also lead to tax fraud, credit card theft and loans taken out in their names.

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Notify a working employee immediately if the state informs you they have filed for unemployment benefits. They may be the victim of identity theft and should file a police report. Officials say workers scammed by cybercriminals do not have to pay unemployment taxes, but they must report the crime to the state labor department. And they should file their federal and state taxes on time for the correct amount of their income. The U.S. Labor Department has created a special website for victims of unemployment fraud.

Review Your Cybersecurity

Much of the personally identifiable information used by cyber thieves comes from data breaches, phishing schemes and other cyberattacks. Remind employees, particularly in human resources and tax departments, to be alert for suspicious emails, telephone calls and text messages about payroll information or W-2 forms.

The threat will continue beyond the pandemic. Business email compromise, in which employees are tricked into paying company funds into fraudulent accounts, is at an all-time high, so make sure employees have regular cybersecurity training. If you haven’t conducted a data inventory, do so now. Once you know what data you keep, you can determine what controls you require to protect that data. Store employee records securely and dispose of personally identifiable information carefully. It is also advisable to use a secure email gateway, which protects from spam, viruses, malware and denial-of-service attacks, and make sure employees working remotely are using secure company devices. Install patches and software updates, setting up automatic software updates whenever possible.

Unemployment or tax fraud targeting multiple employees may indicate a data breach. If you have a theft or cyberattack, contact your insurance carrier and, if necessary, seek expert help to identify the source, the extent of the problem and how best to respond.

Six Considerations Impacting Strategic Regulatory Change Management

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Regulatory change management (RCM) is one of the most important risk and compliance related domains in 2021, thanks to two key drivers. First, the shift from Republican deregulation to Democratic control and an expected uptick in regulatory requirements. Second, similar to the 2008 crash, the pandemic-induced economy and focus on Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans caused many banks to relax their regulatory exams and requirements, while regulators gave companies extra runway for transitioning processes and policies for remote/work-from-home models.

Sometimes regulatory changes are significant enough to change business strategy. In 2021, chief risk officers must be prepared to quickly adapt and react to a historically volatile risk management environment.

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When thinking about an updated, strategic regulatory change management program, here are six considerations for chief risk officers:

1. Lax compliance during the pandemic in 2020 may have introduced hidden risk for activities that normally would have had deeper oversight. 
Sometimes rule changes can also introduce new risks or eliminate a previous risk that needed to be managed, such as potential new default rates around extensions, forfeiture and other things. For example, historically low interest rates present a vexing risk for banks dealing with less profit but just as many loans to process.

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What kind of new risk may be found within those loans?

2. When communicating change across the enterprise, establish responsibility to manage it.
Once you understand which regulations have changed, prioritize those that present the most risk, identify what department’s products and processes are impacted, and determine who is responsible for managing those policies. Having a secure central repository for communicating, storing and managing compliance documentation, versus relying on employees storing information on devices outside corporate servers, is ideal.
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3. If conducting quarterly testing of compliance requirements, it may be challenging to identify key areas in advance that could slip, such as controls around IT/cybersecurity.
When the risk portfolio changes, the controls to manage those risks must be updated accordingly. Firms that may now be less dependent on management oversight and more dependent on confirmations that processes are being followed should put automated controls in place to verify those activities.

4. Companies should shift to best practice or common checklists that can be standardized and shared across the enterprise. 
Assessment checklists are a great way to ensure that all requirements are being met for a wide variety of business processes. Once checklists have been updated, cloud-based software systems can track who has access and can also notify when changes happen. 

5. Historically done manually in-house by visible teams, monitoring and testing for compliance purposes will be conducted remotely. 
The visibility of those tests presents significant challenges, and it is critical to determine how errors and issues will progress and be communicated to the remote testing teams, management, and the organization at large. 

6. Verifying and certifying online training for remote employees can be daunting. 
Creating courses formalized for online training represents a major compliance and process change, particularly for companies in industries with limited work-from-home models, such as financial services. Training materials will need to be updated for new employees, while previously trained employees will need to be retrained. 

Three Ways to Reduce Insider Threat Risks During COVID-19

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Months into the pandemic, organizations have recovered from the initial emergency of trying to ensure that their employees could safely work from home. They now realize that this remote reality will be extended—and they need to determine if they have the right cybersecurity protections in place. Most importantly, they need to stop insider threats, which account for more than 30% of all data breaches.

A long-term commitment to remote work requires a commitment to stopping data loss due to compromised, negligent, or malicious insiders. According to the Ponemon Institute, before the pandemic, the average annual global cost of insider threats rose by 31% in two years to $11.45 million, and the frequency of incidents spiked by 47% in the same period. Security teams are in a constant battle to stop cybercriminals from stealing employee credentials, prevent malicious employee action, and correct accidental user behaviors—all of which can result in unintended data loss. Three ways to reduce insider threat risk are:

1. Conduct a Comprehensive Insider Threat Risk Assessment

Each organization has a unique set of risks from insider threats. Be sure to complete a comprehensive risk assessment to identify your most important data and systems, who can access them, and the security controls you have in place to protect your organization. It is important to remember that data loss potential increases every time new information is created and stored. An organization’s most valuable assets (its people, including employees, contractors and partners) can also become its greatest vulnerability without sufficient data controls in place.

After assessing your environment, focus on identifying key risks and weaknesses to address. Successful elements include building a dedicated insider threat function to protect sensitive data, investing in training, and providing real-time policy reminders for users. Work with your HR team to educate and empower employees in subjects like secure data handling, security awareness, and vigilance. Following these steps will address and mitigate insider threats while establishing consistent, repeatable processes that are fair to all employees.

2. Place People at the Center

From a risk standpoint, organizations must place people at the center of their overall cybersecurity strategy—especially as the workforce becomes more distributed. According to Proofpoint, more than 99% of cyberattacks require human interaction to be successful. Chances of a successful attack only increase when employees are remote. Ultimately, data does not just get up and walk away—it requires someone to perform an action. So a people-centric security approach is necessary to mitigate critical risks across email, the cloud, social media and the web.

First, significantly limit access to non-essential data. Second, limit how long specific users can access the information they need to complete a task. For example, not everyone needs access to customer records. Be sure your security technology can differentiate between malicious acts, accidental behavior, and cybercriminal attacks using compromised employee accounts. This intelligence helps organizations respond according to the incident and provides context around the activities that took place.

Finally, detecting and preventing insider threats is a team sport. It is important to ensure the right stakeholders from each department are involved in your security program. This should include operations, human resources, IT, legal, and of course security.

3. Insider Threat Technology at Work

Organizations need to take a holistic approach to combating insider threats, especially during the pandemic. When assessing insider threat technology, be sure to first consider the performance impact of any solution and its associated scalability, ease of management, deployment, stability and flexibility. Select a solution that provides visibility into user behavior while complementing the tools your organization already uses.

A dedicated insider threat solution reduces threats by helping organizations identify user risk, prevent data loss, and accelerate incident response. This approach also distinguishes malicious acts from simply careless or negligent behavior.

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A more comprehensive cybersecurity program, while also putting training in place, can address negligent behavior before it becomes a security concern.

In 2020, everything about how and where we work changed.

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Unfortunately, both external and insider data breaches are accelerating. Organizations are losing more data due to compromised, negligent, or malicious insiders, so it is time to place people at the center of your cybersecurity strategy. Today’s COVID-19 reality weighs heavily on security teams.
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An effective combination of people, process, and technology can help remediate one of the most critical risk factors facing organizations around the world today.