Internal Risk Management: Protecting Your Business from Within

Internal risk management remains one of the biggest challenges for companies, with employee data exfiltration accounting for 60% of data leaks. Comprehensive monitoring mitigates risks and ensures regulatory compliance. Teramind is introducing a monitoring tool that integrates with AI to improve detection and response to internal threats, says Oscar Lorenzana, Country Manager, Teramind Mexico.

According to studies by Goldstein and Finances Online, the most dangerous internal actors tend to be IT-privileged employees, managers, and contractors. Incidents involving these profiles can not only generate financial losses but also damage the reputation of companies. Lorenzana points out that many businesses still lack adequate internal security policies and effective monitoring systems to prevent these issues. Furthermore, the recent rise in cyberattacks, which increased by 60% in Central America, underscores the growing need for internal protection solutions. "Just in the region, the Dominican Republic experienced 242 million attempted cyberattacks, and as for Mexico, the country saw over 72 million such attempts in 2024,” says Lorenzana. 

Teramind offers a comprehensive solution that addresses internal risk through extensive monitoring of employee activities. The Teramind platform leverages user and endpoint behavior analysis, enabling real-time identification of risky, unproductive, or malicious behaviors. With this solution, businesses can gain complete visibility into their employees' activities and enforce customized security policies. 

Implementing a solution like Teramind's can give rise to some challenges. First, integrating this technology into companies with complex structures and legacy processes can be difficult. Businesses need to consider resistance to change and manage employee privacy when implementing monitoring policies, says Lorenzana. Additionally, IT teams must be properly trained to handle the analysis tools and alerts generated by the system.

Another significant challenge is the need to customize the rules and policies to meet each organization's specifications, which can take time and resources to implement. However, with proper training, these challenges can be overcome, ensuring the solution integrates efficiently into existing processes.

AI and machine learning will play a key role in enhancing platforms' detection and response capabilities. These emerging technologies are expected to lead to an evolution in how companies manage internal risks. As internal threats become more sophisticated, Teramind's solution will adapt to identify even more complex behavior patterns, increasing alert accuracy and reducing false positives, says Lorenzana.

Teramind has helped numerous organizations enhance their response capabilities. For example, a Fortune 500 bank was struggling with internal fraud in its finance department and needed a way to prevent future incidents across all employee areas, explains Lorenzana. The bank had to overcome several challenges such as the lack of supervision over employee data interaction, the inability to track sensitive data usage in custom applications, and the limited context provided by traditional Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools. To address this, Lorenzana's team analyzed all application fields, tracked user activities at the individual field level for web and custom applications, and used productivity analysis to detect anomalies. Teramind also implemented real-time monitoring to understand user actions and specific rule logic for targeted responses.

Through this approach, the bank gained complete visibility into user data interactions, allowing for the generation of specific reports on suspicious users with contextual information such as name, machine, and actions. The solution incorporated enriched threat intelligence with forensic evidence and enabled the classification of incidents by activity data. Personalized responses were developed to prevent fraudulent activities, and crucially, a comprehensive internal fraud mitigation program was created, outlining steps for the bank to address risks based on user behavior.