Having Trouble With Some of Your Employees? Tools For Identifing Insider Threats

Most businesses are very consciencious about outdoor security, keeping unauthorized people from entering secured areas, preventing vandalism, and deterring shoplifters. However, businesses can be somewhat naive when it comes to preventing theft and malicious actions by their employees.

Employee theft, also called insider threats, can take many forms. It can be as simple as taking money from the cash drawer or paper from the supply closet. Or it can be trickier to detect, as with things like stealing customers' personal information or billing the company (or clients) for work that was never completed. Fortunately, you can talk with a professional, like Stealthbits, for software that can help you curb your business threats. Take a look at a number of effective tools that you can use.

1.Threat detection algorithms. Catching a potential insider threat quickly is essential for things like cyber theft and compromised customer information. Setting up an algorithm to detect actions that are outside of the normal day-to-day business activity can help prevent employee theft in real time. Such a program needs to go hand-in-hand with procedures on how to investigate actions that are red-flagged by the algorithm. (Not all out-of-the-norm activities are going to be theft and you need a sensitive way to identify such actions.)

2. Employee computer and phone monitoring. Many companies also monitor a random selection of employee keystrokes and phone calls. This acts as both a theft deterrent and a training tool, as supervisors can identify those performance areas that need quality assurance without having to sit on an employee's shoulder.

3. The "eye in the sky." Crude, but effective, closed-circuit surveillance cameras aimed at key areas in your office or store can catch employee theft as well as shoplifters. It's also important to keep the lenses on your cameras clean and check periodically that the cameras are functioning and backing up information properly.

4. Strict "exit" protocols and log-ins. Many employees who steal sensitive, intellectual information from their employer do it after being terminated or leaving the company. Address these issue by creating special procedures for employees working out their notices. You might want to switch such employees to a centralized log-in, so that their computer actions can be monitored in real time during this period.

While there is no way to absolutely guarantee that your employees will always act in an honest manner, setting up an algorithm to identify employee actions that don't fit the norm, instigating computer and phone monitoring, and making sure to keep your television cameras well-maintained can go a long way to deterring and catching employee theft.

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