I’ve always enjoyed jazz music. It’s a carefully coordinated interplay of musicians blending rhythms and harmonies to create something cohesive and effective. As it happens, this also reflects how human-centric security teams must operate.
Insider Threat Awareness Month is a good time to reflect: are your security teams operating in silos, or are they reinforcing one another?
In a jazz ensemble, each musician has their own riff, their own moment to stand out. But the real magic happens when those pieces come together in harmony. Security is no different. Its strength isn’t in one team trying to play every part, but in the complement of perspectives, each contributing their own line. This reinforces the whole and unlocks the full, unique picture of what happened. Just as no two jazz songs are the same, no two incidents unfold in the same way. This is why the blend of perspectives matters so much.
Human-centric, unified security means each team plays its part. With well-communicated handoffs, clear boundaries, and parallel runs, teams reinforce each other instead of duplicating effort or tripping over one another. And as security evolves to dynamically address risks surrounding human interactions with data and systems, it’s also bringing teams closer together.
Each team has a unique role
Because of this overlap, I often get the same question from Insider Risk and Data Security teams—especially those just starting their journey or taking a fresh look at their program: “What should we consider as touchpoints between teams, and who owns which part of an incident when there’s overlap?”
When we talk about touchpoints, there are plenty of teams that can and should be involved—HR, Employee Relations, Legal, Corporate Security, to name just a few. But to keep this focused, I want to zero in on the three core groups I see come up most often in real-world conversations:
- Data protection teams: They’re the “what happened” team. Their role is to spot and contain risky data movement, making sure the initial fire is under control.
- Insider risk teams: They dig into the “why.” Beyond data movement, they’re looking at context, motive, and behavior. That can stretch into areas such as fraud, workplace violence, or even sabotage—things that aren’t always obvious from technical alerts alone.
- Security operations: They’re the “how bad is it?” team, focused on validating severity, containing threats, and shutting down adversary activity before it spreads.
Now that we have defined the teams and their roles, let’s delve into two example cases.
Case 1: Compromised engineer account—DLP sees it first
Daniel, a cloud data engineer, triggered alerts by uploading production datasets to a personal cloud drive at 2 a.m.
- Data protection: Detected the risk immediately. Dynamic controls automatically blocked transfers, preventing leakage.
- Insider risk: Reviewed his behavioral history and HR context. They found no signs of motive. Daniel’s performance reviews were strong: HR flagged no issues, and his activity logs showed no pattern of risky behavior beyond the anomalous uploads.
- SecOps: Confirmed his credentials had been phished and were actively exploited.
Unified outcome: The account was contained, credentials were rotated, and Daniel was supported as a victim—not misclassified as a malicious insider.
Case 2: Disgruntled analyst with risky access—insider score triggers prevention
Sofia, a financial analyst with access to merger and acquisition files, was in a high-risk user group due to her role.
- Insider risk: Based on competitor job searches, negative performance reviews, and resentful internal communications, Sofia’s risk score went above a set threshold.
- Data protection: Once the risk threshold was met, dynamic prevention blocked repeated large print attempts and then ran a sweep to confirm no other data had been lost.
- SecOps: Verified the sessions were legitimate, ruling out compromise.
Unified outcome: With motive, means, and preparation all aligned, HR and Legal engaged using a validated story. Sofia’s access was restricted, and intervention happened before any data loss.
Key best practices for escalation
The following are best practices for escalation paths between Insider Risk, Data Protection, and SecOps teams.
1. Parallel investigations and unified output
Why it matters: When Insider Risk and SecOps run their tracks in isolation, they often come to different conclusions. HR or Legal may then receive fragmented, even contradictory narratives.
In practice: Investigate in parallel but wait until the outputs are combined before approaching business stakeholders. A converged narrative reduces noise, avoids rework, and builds trust that security has its story straight.
2. No premature engagement
Why it matters: Contacting an employee too soon can be damaging—especially if they’re a victim of compromise. Premature outreach not only erodes trust but can also tip off a malicious insider.
In practice: Insider Risk confirms context, SecOps validates technical impact, and only then is HR brought in to engage the user. Engagement should always be planned and coordinated with HR and Legal.
3. Context over repetition
Why it matters: A stack of repeated DLP alerts often points to systemic issues (training, workload, and access design) rather than intentional wrongdoing. Treating them as isolated “violations” risks punishing symptoms while missing the root cause.
In practice: Aggregate alerts over time. Patterns might reflect systemic or human factors such as burnout and unrealistic deadlines. With this context, interventions become constructive. These might include coaching, training, or workload adjustments, rather than punitive escalation.
4. RBAC boundaries enforced
Why it matters: Even converged teams can drift toward “see everything” models. But high-sensitivity cases (for example, executives, mergers and acquisitions, and regulated data sets) demand strict controls over who can view what. This reduces bias, protects confidentiality, and ensures defensibility in litigation.
In practice: Some analysts might handle only low-to-medium severity cases. Elevated cases should be restricted to senior Insider Risk staff or cross-functional groups with HR and Legal oversight.
5. Validate evidence through visibility
Why it matters: Lack of evidence should never be mistaken as proof that something didn’t happen or was accidental—unless all teams agree that the right monitoring and controls were in place. If monitoring doesn’t reveal the action, then absence of data is meaningless.
In practice: Be cautious of reporting gaps as conclusions. Always confirm whether a gap means no activity or simply no coverage. For example, if encrypted uploads aren’t visible to data loss prevention (DLP) tools, then the absence of alerts doesn’t prove safety—it highlights a visibility gap that must be addressed.
6. Measure and adjust continuously
Why it matters: Escalation processes are effective only if they evolve with the organization. Static playbooks lead to stale coverage, alert fatigue, and reduced credibility.
In practice: Track how many alerts convert to real cases, how quickly handoffs occur, and what interventions (for example, training, discipline, and offboarding) result. Use this data to refine policies, workflows, and staffing.
Conclusion
Like a great jazz performance, resilience comes from structure, skill, and the freedom to adapt in the moment. The question to reflect on is this: are your teams playing in harmony, unlocking the full score of security—or are they still practicing in silos?
To hear about best practices in detecting and preventing insider threats, watch our Biggest & Boldest Insider Threats webinar.
