Understanding layer 8 – the insider threat

As you probably know, users are also called layer 8 (as a joke) because they are on top of the 7-layer OSI model.

Another, more professional, way to call users is insiders. These insiders are a serious threat because they are already inside the network; therefore, many of our defensive systems and mechanisms (which are used to prevent users from accessing our network) will not apply to them.

Now, we will cover the different types of users that you need to consider when creating your cybersecurity strategy.

The inadvertent user

Based on a study from the Ponemon Institute, around 24 percent of data breaches are caused by innocent human errors. We call them innocent errors because they are normally user mistakes in which there is no user intention to cause harm to the data or the systems.

Many people believe that these kinds of incidents are rare or cause minimal impact. However, as you can see in the following diagram...