Preventing Insider Threat

The challenges of insider risk

Insiders are employees, third-party contractors, and other business partners that have legitimate access to corporate data and infrastructure.

Insider threats can entail abuse of privileged access in order to steal, corrupt, or destroy valuable corporate or employee data. But security incidents can also be caused inadvertently by those with access to corporate assets. While data breaches are the most common security issue, critical configuration changes and misuse of corporate assets also should be covered by an insider security policy.

When developing policies to mitigate and prevent insider security risks, security officers must consider specific approaches and tools. Detecting and investigating incidents caused by insiders is quite challenging for various reasons:

Insiders have authorized access.
One insider performs up to 10,000 operations per day, every day.
Insiders know the ins and outs of the system.
Insiders may collude and hide their tracks.

Recent industry research demonstrates the increasing importance of insider threat management, with security experts defining these attacks as the most silent and devastating.

Prevent insider threats with Ekran System^®

Ekran System is universal enterprise insider threat management software that meets the full spectrum of security needs on all kinds of infrastructure nodes, from desktops to jump servers.

The platform combines comprehensive activity monitoring and alerting functionality with an advanced access management and identity control toolset, manual and automated incident response, and powerful reporting capabilities. This makes Ekran System a one-stop solution to implement your insider security policy.

Monitor and investigate activity

Ekran System is a comprehensive monitoring solution to log insider user activity, flag suspicious user behavior, and provide investigators with the information required to respond to security incidents.

As professional insider threat monitoring software, Ekran System equally monitors generic and privileged user accounts, providing advanced protection techniques to guarantee that even privileged IT personnel can’t cover their tracks.

Session video recording

Ekran System allows you to record all user sessions on target endpoints. IP-based and username-based record filtering options are available.

The primary recording format is screen video recordings indexed with multiple layers of text metadata, from application names to typed keystrokes and details of connected devices.

Depending on the type of endpoint, Ekran System clients may record one, several, or all concurrent user sessions.

Key episode search

Besides providing comprehensive connection details – which are important when auditing remote sessions – Ekran System enables further session analysis. Investigators can search by various parameters (name of the active application, visited URL, command entered, or even text typed) within the current session and across all recorded sessions. Search even extends to the content of uploaded scripts.

Client protection

To ensure continuous monitoring of any user with any permissions, Ekran System includes a smart combination of watchdog and driver-level process protection mechanisms to prevent monitoring disruptions. Session recording continues locally even when the server connection is lost.

Learn more: User Activity Monitoring

Detect threats and respond in real time

Our insider threat management platform provides a highly configurable alerting subsystem that includes both customizable rules based on generic behavioral indicators of potential insider threats and an AI-powered user behavior analytics module for detecting anomalies in the routines of internal users.

Predefined and custom alerts

Ekran System provides rule-based incident flagging functionality. Its collection of alert templates covers the most common insider threat indicators. At the same time, you can enhance the system with your own alert rules using a variety of activity parameters: process names, opened web addresses, connected USB devices, typed keystrokes, or executed Linux commands.

User and entity behavior analytics (UEBA)

Ekran’s alert system includes an artificial intelligence module that baselines user behavior against multiple factors to further detect abnormal user activity and possible account compromise.

Automated incident response

To act on triggered alerts beyond merely notifying the security team, Ekran System provides options to set up automated incident response actions. These vary from warning messages obligating users to acknowledge their actions to application termination and user blocking.

USB management

Controlling USB devices is a mandatory part of any insider threat management solution. The Ekran System platform detects, tracks, and may trigger alerts upon connection of various types of USB devices. It also delivers a toolset to allow or block specific devices and device types according to whitelists and blacklists and to apply manual approval for certain USB device usage scenarios.

Learn more: Alerts and Notifications

Control access to user accounts

Ekran System enables granular access management for both privileged and general user accounts. It includes complete privileged account and session management functionality, password management, and access request workflow support. Ekran can also integrate with your ticketing system to reinforce the purpose-based access principle.

To control user identity, it includes reliable and efficient two-factor authentication options.

Learn more: Access Management

Why companies choose Ekran System^®

Full desktop and server OS support

As an agent-based software platform, Ekran System offers clients for all popular operating systems and supports virtual environments as well as any network architecture. With Ekran System, you can combine agent-based and jump server deployment schemes.

All insider threat protection functionality in a single platform

Ekran System delivers user activity monitoring and incident detection together with identity and access management functionality via a single software agent installed on target endpoints. Forget about installing and configuring multiple modules, addons, and extensions. Ekran can entirely support your insider threat-related risk mitigation plan since it’s built in accordance with NIST 800-53 and most IT security standards.

Enterprise-ready

Aimed at employee monitoring and corporate subcontractor control, Ekran System is built and tested to support tens of thousands of endpoints while maintaining exceptional stability and performance. With high availability and support for multi-tenant deployments, system resource and health monitoring dashboards, and maintenance routine automation, Ekran System scales easily and functions perfectly on big heterogeneous infrastructures.

Low total cost of ownership

The unique and transparent licensing offered by Ekran System allows for clear cost estimates and rapid time to value for deployments of any size, from small pilots to enterprise projects. Floating endpoint licensing enables license reassignment between endpoints in a couple of clicks. For virtual environments, the license provisioning process is automated to enhance your organization’s agility.

Get more with enterprise-grade insider threat detection software

Visually structured evidence trail resulting in low incident response time

Context-rich recordings significantly reduce CERT and SOC response times. One-click search across suspicious activity makes investigations faster and more effective.

AI-based compromised account detection

Cybercriminals are constantly improving their ways of compromising privileged accounts. Powered by artificial intelligence, the Ekran UEBA system can detect a hacker who has penetrated a corporate system using stolen credentials.

Lightweight software agent and highly optimized formats for storing data

The lightweight agent works silently and isn’t noticeable to users or other programs. Collected data is saved in searchable and highly optimized video, audio, and text file formats for compact log storage and easy reporting.

Active in your environment in 20 minutes or less

Ekran System is quick to install and easily integrates with SIEM and ticketing systems. You’ll get a ready-to-use solution right after a coffee break.

What Our Clients All Over The World Say

Paul Maranzano
Technical Director at National IT Solutions

We thought we should offer our clients some sort of employee behavior monitoring software. We tried quite a few products before we came to Ekran System. The key factor that led me to Ekran was fast communication from sales to support. I’d highly recommend Ekran System to most colleagues. Within 30 to 40 minutes I had it up and running and it was recording. I was quite impressed by how quick and easy it was. I definitely recommend Ekran System!
Dennis Fox II
CEO | President at ES Consulting

What we like the most about the Ekran is how easy it was to get started. The communication with the team is both smooth and efficient. Also, the support received from Ekran System team, both informational and technical, has always been very prompt and helpful.
Denis Gundarev
Senior Program Manager at Microsoft

Ekran System provides a great solution for customers that need a session recording and activity audits, as well as incident response functionality to detect and prevent insider threats.
Adrian Cragg
CTO of CNC Ltd

As a Managed Service Provider we are responsible for our customers' servers but aren't the only ones with access and often well intentioned 3rd parties cause disruption with unauthorised changes. Ekran gives us peace of mind that all actions carried out on the server are recorded and we can quickly identify & rectify issues. It's like having CCTV for your server and in these times of a need for heightened security and auditing this is perfect for the job.

Our cloud based centralised management console makes it easy for us to monitor all our customers in one place, which is great for a MSP as we can quickly deploy this to customers with minimal, if any, changes to their network or infrastructure.
Oron Beer
Director of Infrastructure and Computerization of Be'eri Press

Ekran gives me confidence when working with external service providers, resolves concerns about using such services we had in the past. The system monitors suppliers and if there is any concern, I can track everything.
Necati MANCAR
IT infrastructure manager, MSC Turkey Agency

Ekran System has become a great choice to record and audit user actions in our infrastructure. It delivers a powerful and flexible toolset; moreover, the Ekran team was ready to customize the platform for our needs adding several new features.
Ian Karpinski
Owner at Bushido Martial Arts

Ekran System provides a great solution that protects sensitive data and improves productivity where required. The software records sessions which gives us full context and visibility of IT infrastructure and provides us with added protection. The user activity reports also are very helpful and enhance security and productivity.

FAQ

What are insider threats and how dangerous are they?

An insider threat is the potential for someone with authorized access to an organization’s critical assets to abuse that access and harm the organization.

The nature of an insider threat can be:

1. Malicious — harming your organization on purpose by exposing, stealing, or damaging your sensitive assets

2. Inadvertent — posing an unintentional threat due to human errors like neglecting security policies or opening phishing emails

Since insiders have legitimate access to your infrastructure, they know where the most valuable data is stored and know your cybersecurity system from within. Insider activity is a common reason for data breaches.

Why use insider threat protection software?

The main goal of deploying insider threat protection software is to detect and address incidents caused by insiders as quickly as possible. By doing so, organizations can prevent data leaks or at least minimize the consequences of a security incident.

Ekran System incorporates an extensive set of insider threat detection and protection tools that can significantly enhance your cybersecurity program. Our platform provides you with helpful insights on the activity of regular employees, privileged users, and third parties. Being able to see who does what is essential for early detection of possible insider threats.

Can I secure my systems from insider threats while employees work remotely?

Yes. You can deploy Ekran System to manage insider risks posed by remote workers. In particular, you can use the platform’s functionality to:

1. Monitor remote employee activity in real time

2. Review video and audio records of remote user sessions

3. Verify the identities of remote users with multi-factor authentication

4. Configure access rights for each user or group of users

5. Manually approve access requests for the most critical assets

6. Leverage instant alerts to detect suspicious events and respond to them manually or automatically

Will Ekran System disturb my employees’ work?

No. Ekran System doesn’t interrupt employees’ work while monitoring user activity.

The only scenario in which Ekran System can disturb a user’s work is when a user acts suspiciously. For instance, you can configure insider attack prevention rules so that users receive notifications explaining that particular actions violate cybersecurity policies. Also, your security team can manually block suspicious sessions, users, and actions after receiving notifications from Ekran System, or you can automate this process for securing the most critical assets.

What platforms and operating systems does Ekran System support?

Ekran System is available for a number of operating systems and platforms:

1. Windows

2. Linux/Unix

3. macOS

4. X Window System Monitoring

5. VDI platforms: Citrix, VMware Horizon, Hyper-V, Microsoft Azure Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), Amazon Workspaces, and more

Can Ekran System monitor administrators?

Yes. Ekran System monitors the activity of admins and other privileged users. Our insider threat detection tool can also help you with privileged access management, account and session management, auditing the activity of privileged users, and responding in real time to suspicious activity of privileged users.

Can I use Ekran System to comply with cybersecurity requirements?

As a user activity monitoring and insider risk prevention solution, Ekran System is designed with cybersecurity requirements in mind. Our platform offers various features that help businesses meet key IT cybersecurity laws, regulations, and standards, including the GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, NIST SP 800-53 and SP 800-171, SWIFT CPS, and FISMA.

Can I integrate Ekran System with other tools and software?

Yes. You can integrate Ekran System with:

1. SIEM systems: Splunk, ArcSight, and QRadar

2. Ticketing systems: SysAid, ServiceNow, API Bridge

3. Active Directory

Can Ekran System work in cloud environments?

Ekran System is available for both on-premises and cloud deployments, including in hybrid environments.

If you’d like to prevent insider risks in the cloud, Ekran System can help you do that efficiently. With our platform, you can monitor any number of endpoints and adjust which endpoints are monitored as needed. Ekran System also offers automatic client updates and monitoring data backups so you can always use the latest version of the platform and protect your data from accidental loss.

Can I get help with deploying Ekran System? How do I get started?

Deploying Ekran System for detecting insider threats is a straightforward and fast process. If you have any troubles, questions, or suggestions, our technical support team is always available to help.

If you want to check out how our insider threat protection solution works before you commit, you can request a free 30-day trial or an online demo version.

When you’re ready to deploy a full version of the Ekran System platform, check out the available licensing schemes to choose the edition that best meets your needs.

To get a cost estimate for deploying Ekran System in your infrastructure and according to your specific requirements, please get in touch with us using this form.

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Insider Threat Management Software

Control access. Monitor insider activity. Respond to incidents. All-in-one

The challenges of insider risk