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.