Internal leak prevention is a general term for various management and technical measures taken by an organization to prevent unauthorized disclosure of internal sensitive information. It mainly controls the information access and operation behavior of insiders, and reduces the probability of intentional or negligent leaks.
Internal leak prevention work usually includes employee management, authority control, monitoring and inspection, hierarchical protection, off-duty control, technical protection, incident response, etc. Internal leak prevention work runs through all stages of the information life cycle. It is more fundamental and critical than any external intrusion prevention measures, and is an important prerequisite for ensuring information security and preventing intellectual property or commercial secret leaks.
External theft prevention refers to various protective measures taken by organizations to prevent unauthorized access to obtain and steal their sensitive information assets. It mainly prevents the intrusion of external attackers, and protects the sensitive information of the organization from being illegally obtained or stolen.
External anti-theft work usually includes physical protection, network security, system reinforcement, data encryption, authority management, security audit, vulnerability management, and security incident response.
External anti-theft work needs to guard against all possible attack paths and means, and update according to the latest threats at any time. It can effectively prevent external unauthorized access and information theft, but it cannot completely cover leaks within the organization, so it needs to be combined with internal leak prevention work to jointly ensure information security.
It is understood that internal leaks account for a very large proportion of information security incidents. According to different statistical reports and studies, internal leaks account for about 50% to 70% of all information security incidents. The main reason is that insiders have natural advantages, such as familiarity with the system and business, and easy access to high authority and key data, which makes them more capable and motivated to carry out targeted leaks.
Moreover, the proportion of internal leaks is large and has an upward trend. This shows that information security prevention work should not only focus on external threats, but also need to strengthen the awareness and management of internal personnel information security as the top priority. Therefore, it can be precisely explained that internal protection against leaks is more important than external protection against theft.
In addition, internal leakage prevention is more important than external theft prevention, which can also be proved from the following aspects:
1. Insiders have higher legitimate access rights and are more likely to obtain sensitive information. Insiders naturally have legitimate access to systems and data, making it easier for them to gain access to sensitive and critical information. However, external attackers need to access and infiltrate through illegal means, which is more difficult.
2. Insider attacks are harder to prevent and detect. Because the behavior of insiders is inherently difficult to distinguish legitimate business operations from deliberate insider attacks, this makes the latter more difficult to detect and stop in a timely manner. Once the means and behaviors of external attacks are exposed, it is easier to be identified.
3. The damage caused by internal attacks may be more serious. Internal personnel are familiar with the system structure and business process, and can obtain high-value information or destroy it in a more accurate and targeted manner. External attacks are relatively more blind, and it is difficult to achieve the same effect.
4. Insider attacks are more invisible. Insiders can use their own authority to modify logs or manipulate monitoring measures to hide leaks, making it impossible to identify the responsible person through technical means. Once external attacks are discovered, it is difficult to avoid leaving traces that can be traced.
5. Internal leaks can seriously affect employee loyalty and morale. Intentional or negligent leaks within the organization will seriously weaken employees' loyalty and trust in the organization and affect team morale. This is an effect that is difficult to achieve by external attacks.
To sum up, insiders naturally have stronger information acquisition and operation capabilities, are difficult to be prevented and checked, and can lead to more serious consequences. This makes internal leakage prevention the most important and basic control measure in information security protection, which is more critical and core than the prevention of external threats. If the internal defense line of the organization is unstable, external defense measures will not be effective. Therefore, internal leak prevention can be said to be the top priority of information security work.
Enterprises can fine-grainedly control the flow of business system data without changing employees' work habits, affecting their office efficiency, or infringing on their personal privacy through the digital shadow safe office space. At the same time, configure security policies such as access rights, behavior auditing, digital watermarking, and data desensitization, and implement security controls on employee copying and pasting, downloading and uploading, and taking screenshots to prevent data leakage from within. In addition, Shuying can automatically identify and classify malicious websites, prevent employees from clicking malicious links, and prevent data from being stolen.
Finally, it should be noted that on the premise of emphasizing internal defense, external defense must also be combined. Only by combining external defense and internal defense to create an all-round security defense line can the probability and impact of information security incidents be minimized.