What is an insider threat?

An insider threat refers to a security risk that comes from individuals within the organization, such as employees, contractors, or business partners, who have inside information concerning the organization’s security practices, data, or computer systems. These individuals can pose a threat either through malicious intent, such as theft of sensitive data or sabotage, or through negligence, such as accidental disclosures of confidential information.

Understanding insider threats is crucial because they can significantly impact an organization's security posture and data integrity, and they often go unnoticed longer than external threats. Organizations need to implement measures such as monitoring user activity, conducting employee training, and developing an incident response plan to mitigate these types of risks.

The other options represent different concepts unrelated to the internal dynamics of an organization. External cyber attacks involve threats emerging from outside the organization, attacks targeting network devices focus on specific infrastructure components, and tools for data encryption are technologies used to protect data, which do not pertain to the actions or behaviors of individuals within an organization.