Ideology

A subject may be required to undergo a criminal background check prior to joining the organization, particularly when the role involves access to sensitive systems, data, or physical spaces. This preventative measure is designed to identify any prior criminal conduct that may present a risk to the organization, indicate a potential for malicious behavior, or conflict with legal, regulatory, or internal policy requirements.

Criminal background checks help assess whether a subject's history includes offenses related to fraud, theft, cybercrime, or breaches of trust—each of which may elevate the insider threat risk. Roles with elevated privileges, access to customer data, financial systems, or classified information are often subject to stricter screening protocols to ensure individuals do not pose undue risk to organizational security or compliance obligations.

This control is especially critical in regulated industries or environments handling national security assets, intellectual property, or financial infrastructure. In such settings, background checks may be embedded within broader personnel vetting procedures, such as security clearances or workforce integrity programs.

Where appropriate, periodic re-screening or risk-based follow-up checks—triggered by role changes or concerning behavior—can strengthen an organization’s ability to detect emerging threats over time. When implemented consistently, background checks can serve as both a deterrent and a proactive defense against insider threat activity.

An individual’s prior employment history may be verified through formal reference checks conducted prior to their onboarding with the organization. This process aims to validate key aspects of the subject’s professional background, including dates of employment, job titles, responsibilities, and performance, as well as behavioral or conduct-related concerns.

Reference checks serve as a critical layer in assessing an individual’s suitability for a given role, particularly where access to sensitive systems, data, or personnel is involved. When conducted thoroughly, this process can help identify discrepancies in a candidate’s reported history, uncover patterns of misconduct, or reveal concerns related to trustworthiness, reliability, or alignment with organizational values.

Employment reference checks are particularly relevant to insider threat prevention when evaluating candidates for positions involving privileged access, managerial authority, or handling of confidential information. These checks may also uncover warning signs such as unexplained departures, disciplinary actions, or documented integrity issues that elevate the risk profile of the individual.

Organizations may perform this function internally or engage trusted third-party screening providers who specialize in pre-employment due diligence. When combined with other vetting measures—such as criminal background checks and social media screening—reference checks contribute to a layered approach to workforce risk management and help mitigate the likelihood of malicious insiders gaining access through misrepresentation or concealment.

An individual may be required to present and verify valid government-issued identification prior to their association with the organization. This process serves as a foundational identity assurance mechanism, ensuring that the subject is who they claim to be and enabling further vetting procedures to be accurately applied.

Verification of official identification—such as passports, national ID cards, or driver’s licenses—supports compliance with legal, regulatory, and internal requirements related to employment eligibility, right-to-work verification, security clearance eligibility, and access provisioning. It also helps establish a verifiable link between the individual and other background screening measures, including criminal record checks, reference verification, and credential validation.

In the context of insider threat prevention, government-issued ID verification helps prevent identity fraud and the onboarding of individuals using false or stolen identities to gain unauthorized access to sensitive roles, environments, or data. This is particularly critical in sectors handling classified information, critical infrastructure, or financial assets, where subjects may otherwise attempt to obscure prior conduct or affiliations.

Organizations may perform this verification in-house using secure document validation systems or biometric identity matching, or they may rely on trusted third-party identity verification providers offering digital identity assurance services. As part of a multi-layered personnel screening framework, this control helps reduce the risk of malicious insiders gaining a foothold under false pretenses.

Implement a process whereby HR data and observations, including those from managers and colleagues, can be securely communicated in a timely manner to investigators, triggering proactive monitoring of potential insider threats early in their lifecycle. Collaboration between HR teams, managers, colleagues, and investigators is essential for detecting concerning behaviors or changes in an employee's personal circumstances that could indicate an increased risk of insider threat.

Mental Health and Personal Struggles

• Trigger Event: HR receives reports or observes a significant change in an employee's behavior or performance, which may indicate mental health issues or personal struggles that could elevate the likelihood of an insider threat. This information may come from managers, colleagues, or direct observations within HR.
• Indicator: Multiple reports from managers, direct supervisors, or colleagues highlighting behavior changes such as stress, depression, or erratic actions.
• Response: HR teams should notify investigators of high-risk employees with visible signs of distress or any reported instances that might indicate susceptibility to manipulation or exploitation.

Negative Statements or Discontent with the Company

• Trigger Event: HR identifies instances of employees making negative statements about the company, its leadership, or its operations, potentially through personal social media channels, internal communications, or third-party reports. Additionally, such concerns might be raised by managers or colleagues.
• Indicator: Recorded incidents where employees voice dissatisfaction in forums or interactions that may expose vulnerabilities within the company, which may come from colleagues, managers, or HR’s internal channels.
• Response: Immediate referral to investigators for further investigation, including tracking if such sentiments are coupled with any increase in risky behaviors (e.g., accessing sensitive data or systems without authorization).

Excessive Financial Purchases (Potential Embezzlement or Third-Party Influence)

• Trigger Event: HR or finance teams notice discrepancies in an employee's personal financial behavior—particularly excessive spending patterns that appear inconsistent with their known salary or financial profile. This could indicate embezzlement, financial mismanagement, or payments from third parties. Such concerns may also be raised by managers or colleagues.
• Indicator: Transactions that show a high degree of personal spending or financial behavior inconsistent with the employee’s compensation, possibly flagged by HR, finance, or colleagues who notice unusual behaviors.
• Response: Referral to investigators for correlation with employee access to financial or sensitive company systems, along with further scrutiny of potential illicit financial transactions. Third-party or whistleblower reports, including from colleagues or managers, may also be investigated as part of a broader risk assessment.

Hearsay and Indirect Reports

• Trigger Event: Anonymous or informal reports—such as rumors or gossip circulating in the workplace—that hint at potential insider threat behaviors. These reports, often from colleagues or managers, may be unsubstantiated, but they still warrant an alert if the volume or credibility of the information increases.
• Indicator: Reports or concerns raised by employees, colleagues, or external parties suggesting that an employee may be engaging in unusual behaviors, such as excessive contact with external vendors, financial irregularities, or internal dissatisfaction.
• Response: Investigators work with HR to assess the situation by cross-referencing any concerns, including those from colleagues or managers, with the employee's activity patterns, communication, and access to sensitive systems.

Implementation Considerations

• Collaboration Framework: A clear and secure protocol for HR, managers, colleagues, and investigators to share critical information regarding employees at risk. This should maintain employee privacy and legal protections, while still enabling timely alerts.
• Confidentiality and Privacy: All information related to personal behavior, health, or financial matters must be handled with sensitivity and in accordance with legal and regulatory frameworks, such as GDPR or local privacy laws.
• Continuous Monitoring: Once flagged, employees should be monitored for any other risk indicators, including changes in data access patterns, unapproved system access, or behavior that correlates with identified risks.

Provide a process for all staff members to report concerning and/or suspicious behaviour to the organization's security team for review. An internal whistleblowing process should take into consideration the privacy of the reporter and the subject(s) of the report, with specific regard to safeguarding against reprisals against reporters.

Background checks should be conducted to ensure whether the information provided by the candidate during the interview process is truthful. This could include employment and educational reference checks, and a criminal background check. Background checks can highlight specific risks, such as a potential for extortion.

A subject’s publicly accessible online presence may be examined prior to, or during, their association with the organization through the application of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques. This form of screening involves the systematic analysis of publicly available digital content—such as social media profiles, posts, comments, blogs, forums, and shared media—to assess potential risks associated with an individual.

Social media screening is typically conducted to identify indicators of reputational risk, conflicting motives, or behavioral patterns that may suggest the potential for insider threat activity. Content of concern may include public expressions of hostility toward the organization, affiliation with extremist or high-risk groups, or engagement with topics unrelated to the subject's role that could indicate potential misuse of access.

Trusted service providers specializing in OSINT and digital risk intelligence may be engaged to perform this screening on behalf of the organization. These providers use automated tools and analyst-driven review processes to ensure consistent, legally compliant, and policy-aligned assessments of online behavior.

When implemented as part of pre-employment screening or ongoing risk monitoring, social media screening can serve as a proactive measure to detect insider threat indicators early. To be effective and ethical, such programs must follow applicable privacy laws, data protection regulations, and internal governance standards. When responsibly executed, social media screening enhances the organization's ability to identify individuals who may present an elevated risk to information security, personnel safety, or corporate reputation.

An agent capable of User Activity Monitoring (UAM) is a software agent installed on organization endpoints (such as laptops); typically, User Activity Monitoring agents are only deployed on endpoints where a human user Is expected to conduct the activity.

The User Activity Monitoring agent will typically record Operating System, application, and network activity occurring on an endpoint, with a focus on activity that is or can be conducted by a human user. The purpose of this monitoring is to identify undesirable and/or malicious activity being conducted by a human user (in this context, an Insider Threat).

Typical User Activity Monitoring platforms operate in an agent/server model where activity logs are sent to a server for automatic correlation against a rule set. This rule set is used to surface activity that may represent Insider Threat related activity such as capturing screenshots, copying data, compressing files or installing risky software.

Other platforms providing related functionality are frequently referred to as User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) platforms.

An agent capable of User Behaviour Analytics (UBA) is a software agent installed on organizational endpoints (such as laptops). Typically, User Activity Monitoring agents are only deployed on endpoints where a human user is expected to conduct the activity.

The User Behaviour Analytics agent will typically record Operating System, application, and network activity occurring on an endpoint, focusing on activity that is or can be conducted by a human user. Typically, User Behaviour Analytics platforms operate in an agent/server model where activity logs are sent to a server for automatic analysis. In the case of User Behaviour Analytics, this analysis will typically be conducted against a baseline that has previously been established.

A User Behaviour Analytic platform will typically conduct a period of ‘baselining’ when the platform is first installed. This baselining period establishes the normal behavior parameters for an organization’s users, which are used to train a Machine Learning (ML) model. This ML model can then be later used to automatically identify activity that is predicted to be an anomaly, which is hoped to surface user behavior that is undesirable, risky, or malicious.

Other platforms providing related functionality are frequently referred to as User Activity Monitoring (UAM) platforms.

Google's Chrome browser stores the history of accessed websites and files downloaded.

On Windows, this information is stored in the following location: C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Login Data. This file is a JSON file and can be opened in any text editor, such as Notepad. This contains the URL, page title, date added, and date the bookmark was last used.

Google's Chrome browser stores cookies that can reveal valuable insights into user behavior, including login details, session durations, and frequently visited sites.

On Windows, this information is stored in the following location:

C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Network\cookies.

This database file can be opened in software such as DB Browser For SQLite. The ‘cookies' table is of interest to understand recent activity within Chrome.

Google's Chrome browser stores the history of accessed websites and files downloaded.

On Windows, this information is stored in the following location:

C:/Users/<Username>/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data/Default/

On macOS:

/Users/<Username>/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/

On Linux:

/home/<Username>/.config/google-chrome/Default/

Where /Default/ is referenced in the paths above, this is the default profile for Chrome, and can be replaced if a custom profile is used. In this location one database file is relevant, history.sqlite.
 

This database file can be opened in software such as DB Browser For SQLite. The ‘downloads’ and ‘urls’ tables are of immediate interest to understand recent activity within Chrome.

Google's Chrome browser stores some login data of accessed websites, that can provide the URLs and usernames used for authentication.

On Windows, this information is stored in the following location:

C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Login Data.

This file is a database file and can be opened in software such as DB Browser For SQLite. The ‘logins’ and ‘stats’ tables are of immediate interest to understand saved login data.

The passwords are not visible as they are encrypted. However, the encryption key is stored locally and can be used to decrypt saved passwords. The key is stored in the file C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Local State, which can be read with any text editor, such as Notepad, and searching for the “encrypted_key” value. The tool decrypt_chrome_password.py (referenced) can decrypt the AES-encrypted passwords to plaintext.

Monitor outbound DNS traffic for unusual or suspicious queries that may indicate DNS tunneling. DNS monitoring entails observing and analyzing Domain Name System (DNS) queries and responses to identify abnormal or malicious activities. This can be achieved using various security platforms and network appliances, including Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS), specialized DNS services, and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems that process DNS logs.

Microsoft's Edge browser stores the history of accessed websites and files downloaded.

On Windows, this information is stored in the following location:

C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\

On macOS:

/Users/<Username>/Library/Application Support/Microsoft Edge/Default/

On Linux:

/home/<Username>/.config/microsoft-edge/Default/

Where /Default/ is referenced in the paths above, this is the default profile for Edge, and can be replaced if a custom profile is used. In this location one database file is relevant, history.sqlite.
 

This database file can be opened in software such as DB Browser For SQLite. The ‘downloads’ and ‘urls’ tables are of immediate interest to understand recent activity within Chrome.

Email gateway solutions offer the ability to trace inbound and outbound emails to an organization. This can be used to retrieve information such as emails sent or received, the subject line, content, attachments, timestamps, and recipients.

Mozilla's Firefox browser stores the history of accessed websites.

On Windows, this information is stored in the following location:

C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Profile Name>\

On macOS:

/Users/<Username>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<Profile Name>/

On Linux:

/home/<Username>/.mozilla/firefox/<Profile Name>/

In this location two database files are relevant, places.sqlite (browser history and bookmarks) and favicons.sqlite (favicons for visited websites and bookmarks).
 

These database files can be opened in software such as DB Browser For SQLite.

Message trace is a feature within Exchange that permits the ability to identify inbound and outbound emails within the organization.

This can be used to see which mailboxes have sent or received emails, the time, the subject line, and recipients.

Social Media Monitoring refers to monitoring social media interactions to identify organizational risks, such as employees disclosing confidential information and making statements that could harm the organization (either directly or through an employment association).

Implement User Behavior Analytics (UBA) tools to continuously monitor and analyze user (human) activities, detecting anomalies that may signal security risks. UBA can track and flag unusual behavior, such as excessive data downloads, accessing a higher-than-usual number of resources, or large-scale transfers inconsistent with a user’s typical patterns. UBA can also provide real-time alerts when users engage in behavior that deviates from established baselines, such as accessing sensitive data during off-hours or from unfamiliar locations. By identifying such anomalies, UBA enhances the detection of insider events.