While many organizations focus on external threat actors, insider threats are a significant risk that can devastate a business from within. Because these individuals have legitimate access to a company’s systems, their actions — whether motivated by financial gain or caused by human error — often bypass security controls.
And the problem is only getting worse. According to the Ponemon Institute, insider attacks increased by 47% from 2023-25. Today, these incidents cost organizations an average of $19.5 million each year.
In this blog, we’ll delve into some infamous insider threat examples, explaining why they happened and what companies can do to prevent future security risks.
What is an Insider Threat?
An insider threat is a security risk that originates within an organization. It involves individuals who can legitimately access the organization’s network, systems, and sensitive data.
Unlike external threats that must break through a company’s security, these insider risks come from within — usually from employees, contractors, or third-party vendors.
Whether the actor is a former employee seeking revenge or a negligent staff member misconfiguring security settings, the result is a devastating data breach that can disrupt business operations and expose confidential data.
It’s important to recognize that not all insider threats are driven by malicious intent. While malicious insiders may pursue intellectual property theft or data theft for personal gain, many security breaches are due to human error or unintended mistakes.
These incidents often occur when users with authorized access lack proper security awareness training, leading them to bypass security protocols or fall victim to social engineering attacks like phishing scams.
Regardless of the motive, detecting insider threats is now an essential step for businesses to take.
What Are the Different Types of Insider Threats?
To build an effective insider threat prevention strategy, you must first understand the diverse profiles of those with authorized access.
Not all insider threats share the same motives; some aim to disrupt business operations, while others are simply the victims of human error.
Here are the primary types of insider threats currently facing modern organizations:
- Malicious Insiders: These are individuals who intentionally abuse their access to steal trade secrets, commit intellectual property theft, or leak company data. Their actions are typically driven by personal gain, such as financial gain or a desire for revenge.
- Negligent Insiders (Passive Threats): The most common type of insider risk; these users cause unintentional insider threats through carelessness. Examples include misconfiguring security settings, failing to follow security policies, or accidentally exposing sensitive information.
- Collusive Threats: This occurs when an internal employee or contractor collaborates with external threat actors. Often recruited via the dark web, the insider helps the attacker gain access to critical systems or bypass security controls in exchange for payment.
- Social Engineering Victims: In these insider threat incidents, hackers manipulate employees via phishing scams or other social engineering attacks. The insider unknowingly provides the initial access or credentials the attacker needs to infiltrate the company’s network.
- The “Double Agent” (Moles): These are the most dangerous malicious insider threats. In this scenario, a spy joins a business specifically to exfiltrate confidential data or trade secrets. Because they’re highly skilled and equipped with advanced technology, it’s often difficult for security teams to detect their abnormal behavior.
- Former Employees: The security risk posed by a disgruntled former employee or executive can persist long after their departure. If system access isn’t immediately revoked, they may use their retained privileged access to commit data theft or sabotage operations.
What Are Some Notable Examples of Insider Threat Incidents?
Now, let’s look at some well-known insider incidents. We’ll explore the circumstances behind them and share some ways they could’ve been prevented.
1. Rippling
In March 2025, workforce management tech company Rippling sued competitor Deel, accusing them of planting an employee spy within their organization.
This alleged insider was a Global Payroll Compliance Manager hired in 2023. As a legitimate employee, they had access to Rippling’s tech stack, including Slack, Salesforce, and Google Drive. They were accused of exfiltrating sensitive data, including customer lists, pricing details, competitive intelligence, employee data, and more, with the activity going undetected for four months.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
Sharper oversight of employee actions would’ve helped here.
A user activity monitoring tool, such as Teramind, would’ve flagged the insider’s suspicious searches or their unusual access to large volumes of sales and customer data much earlier in the four-month window.
Once it had identified deviations from the employee’s normal work patterns, the tool would’ve triggered alerts, prompting a much faster investigation.
2. Proofpoint
Proofpoint bills itself as a leader in data loss prevention. But in 2021, the security company filed a lawsuit against a former executive for stealing confidential sales data before joining market rival Abnormal Security.
The data in question was Proofpoint’s playbook for competing with Abnormal Security’s sales tactics. This is a typical example of an insider incident in which current employees with system access exfiltrate company data.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
Often, malicious actors expose sensitive data using personal devices.
In this case, the ex-employee loaded data onto a personal USB drive and walked out the door. Proofpoint’s insider threat software failed to alert admins about the suspicious activity, and it was months before their security team realized any theft had occurred.
With more robust employee monitoring and insider threat protection, including the ability to block USB drives, this incident may have been stopped immediately.
3. Coca-Cola
Several years ago, at the Coca-Cola Company, a high-ranking employee was indicted for taking trade secrets and delivering them to parties associated with Chinese companies and the Chinese government.
In this case, the guilty party was a principal engineer for global research. This role naturally gave the threat actor legitimate access to critical assets and systems. As such, some security leaders and corporate executives assert that it would’ve been hard to restrict that person’s access or detect anomalous behavior.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
Rather than limiting access, monitoring how the employee handled the data, and utilizing stricter controls could’ve prevented this incident.
With data loss prevention tools like Teramind, the engineer’s access could’ve been more tightly regulated, allowing them to open and edit only the files that were strictly necessary for their role. Communications with outside parties on company devices could also have been detected.
4. Tesla
Another big insider threat occurred at Elon Musk’s Tesla electric car company, a leader in its field and an enormous brand name on the American stock market.
The security incident got a response from the tech mogul himself; Musk said the employee caused “quite extensive and damaging sabotage” to the company by exporting large amounts of data, including photo and video assets, and stealing many gigabytes of Tesla data associated with the company’s MOS source code.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
The logging and monitoring of the insider’s data use and system access could have caught this cybercrime in action.
If security personnel had been looking closely at the employee’s user behavior analytics, they would’ve been tipped off in several ways: by the abnormal number of accounts the insider created or by timestamps identifying anomalous behavior at unusual times.
5. Twitter
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Twitter experienced an insider threat incident and social engineering attack.
At the social media giant, three people were charged with using the accounts of a small number of employees to exploit a phone spearfishing attack and hijack the Twitter accounts of some big names, such as Jeff Bezos.
The insider threat actors then made these prominent profiles look like they were giving away Bitcoin, tying the accounts to a scam. As such, they could collect user data and make off with Bitcoin contributions. Twitter’s incident response investigation revealed that the attackers had access to internal tools and data.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
One of the key takeaways is to protect systems, not just data, from cyberattacks.
Companies should implement proper identity security protocols to prevent employees from stealing confidential information. This includes protocols on social media accounts, cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS), and any other corporate software.
The processes through which Twitter accounts were updated would have been a good place to start, locking down the access privileges attached to public profiles. Closer analysis of user and entity behavior would also have identified suspicious network access.
6. Cisco
In this case, a Cisco employee deleted 456 virtual machines, compromising the company’s WebEx Teams application that handled video meetings and file sharing.
The 2018 attack was undertaken by an employee who had resigned five months before. Using his personal Google Cloud resources, the insider reportedly gained access to cloud systems through AWS, which affected parts of Cisco’s virtualization platform.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
Cisco spokespeople cited a low dwell time for this attack and said the company added safeguards after the fact.
However, isn’t this a case of too little, too late? The attack underscores the need for businesses to examine cloud vendors closely and properly vet decommissioned employee accounts. Former staff members pose ongoing security risks if their access isn’t completely revoked.
On the virtual machine side, companies should pay attention to things like decommissioning old machines (as well as employee accounts) and carefully counting the nodes in a virtualization schema.
7. Target
Target’s massive data breach in 2014 garnered international headlines and showed the world how damaging malicious actions can be.
The attack was due to malware installed on point-of-sale infrastructure, which allowed cybercriminals to siphon off 11 GB of customer data. 110 million payment cards and personal records were exfiltrated in less than one month.
According to reports, the attackers exploited something very specific – Target’s account with a vendor that provided internet-connected HVAC services.
The source of this insider threat showcases how all vendors, even those not directly connected to merchant transactions or internal core services, must be adequately monitored.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
As part of the company’s response, Target promised to update privileged access management for all third-party vendors – but by that point, the damage was already done.
One way to prevent this incident would be to isolate the vendor’s access to only the parts of the network that are needed for their day-to-day work. Tools like Teramind monitor business networks and notify admins whenever suspicious connections are detected.
8. Uber
At the peak of the self-driving car tech race, a Google engineer working for the division that became Waymo was sentenced to 18 months in prison for theft of trade secrets and intellectual property.
The engineer used Waymo’s information to start the trucking company Otto, which he then sold to Uber.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
Google filed suit after the engineer sold his company to Uber. This would suggest that Google was aware of the insider threat and pursued legal action only after the stolen data fell into the hands of a much more significant competitor.
Multinational corporations can afford to take these kinds of risks; SMBs and smaller enterprises, less so. We recommend implementing a data protection solution to stop insider threats before they happen.
9. Stradis Healthcare
A stark example of sabotage by a disgruntled insider occurred at Stradis Healthcare during a critical time – the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. This incident involved a former executive acting out of revenge after being terminated, highlighting the risks associated with inadequate offboarding procedures.
The former Vice President of Finance had reportedly been warned about abusing internal applications before being fired in March 2020. Just days after his departure, he logged into the company’s shipping systems using a secret administrative account he had created before his termination.
Exploiting these retained privileges, he intentionally disrupted the company’s logistics operations by editing approximately 115,000 shipping records and deleting another 2,400. This malicious act significantly delayed vital shipments of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when they were most needed.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
This case powerfully highlights the importance of thorough and immediate employee offboarding.
All access credentials for departing employees — including any unauthorized or hidden accounts — must be identified and revoked the instant employment is terminated.
It’s also best practice to apply the principle of least privilege during employment. This ensures users only have the access strictly necessary for their roles, limiting their ability to make unauthorized access attempts in the first place.
Regular auditing of user accounts, especially those with elevated privileges, is essential to detect rogue or unauthorized accounts before they can be exploited post-termination.
10. FinWise
The FinWise Bank security incident is another caused by a former employee.
In May 2024, a former staff member leveraged retained system access to infiltrate the bank’s records, exposing the sensitive data of approximately 689,000 customers. The breach included highly confidential data such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and account numbers.
The most alarming aspect of this insider attack was the discovery timeline. FinWise didn’t identify the suspicious activity until June 2025 — more than a year after the initial unauthorized access attempts.
This massive visibility gap led to multiple class-action lawsuits, with plaintiffs alleging that the bank failed to implement basic security controls, such as encryption, to protect sensitive customer data.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
This data breach could have been neutralized at several stages using proactive insider threat detection tools like Teramind.
First and foremost, a rigorous offboarding protocol integrated with privileged access management would have ensured that the individual’s legitimate access was revoked the moment their employment ended.
Teramind’s automated auditing helps security teams identify orphan accounts — those that remain active after an employee leaves — preventing former employees from gaining access to critical systems.
Furthermore, even if the attacker managed to bypass security protocols using a hidden or secret account, Teramind’s user behavior analytics (UBA) would’ve flagged the abnormal behavior.
By establishing a baseline of normal work patterns, the platform’s behavioral analytics engine can automatically detect and block suspicious activity, such as a user accessing thousands of unencrypted records at unusual times.
Banking DLP features, including file share tracking and OCR capabilities, would have allowed the bank to see exactly what information was being viewed or exfiltrated, potentially stopping the data theft in seconds rather than discovering it a year later.
11. KnowBe4
In a sophisticated social engineering attack, a North Korean operative successfully infiltrated the security firm KnowBe4 by posing as a software engineer.
The attacker used a stolen but valid US identity and an AI-enhanced photograph to bypass security controls during the hiring process. Despite undergoing four video interviews and standard background checks, the malicious insider was able to secure a position on the company’s internal AI team.
The threat escalated the moment the operative received their company-issued workstation. The “employee” immediately attempted to load malware and manipulate session history files to establish a foothold within the organization’s network.
This case illustrates a growing trend of laptop farms, where state-sponsored actors work remotely via VPNs to exfiltrate company data and funnel wages back to prohibited regimes.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
While KnowBe4’s existing tools successfully contained the threat, this incident underscores the need for deep visibility into user behavior from day one.
Teramind would have immediately flagged the new hire’s unusual behavior. Specifically, its AI agent governance feature would have identified superhuman execution patterns (such as the rapid execution of commands or unauthorized file modifications) that occur at speeds far beyond typical human capacity.
Furthermore, Teramind’s network monitoring would have detected the use of VPNs or unauthorized remote-access tools intended to mask a user’s true physical location.
12. Coinbase
In May 2025, Coinbase revealed a significant insider threat incident involving a group of overseas support agents who were recruited and bribed by external cybercriminals.
These malicious insiders abused their access to internal customer support tools to exfiltrate sensitive customer data — including names, addresses, ID images, and transaction histories — for less than 1% of the platform’s monthly transacting users. The objective was to create a target list for social engineering attacks, where scammers posed as Coinbase employees to trick users into transferring cryptocurrency.
The threat culminated in a $20 million ransom demand to prevent the leak of the stolen information. Coinbase refused to pay, instead establishing a $20 million reward fund to assist law enforcement in the arrest of the criminals involved.
While no private keys or login credentials were compromised, the incident forced the company to commit to significant voluntary reimbursements for customers who were successfully scammed as a direct result of the breach.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
This is a classic example of collusion with third parties, where the human element becomes the primary vulnerability. Preventing such an attack requires visibility into how employees interact with sensitive data in real-time.
User activity tracking tools would have provided visibility into the actions of these overseas agents, flagging abnormal behavior such as the mass copying or exporting of customer records from support platforms. By leveraging keystroke logging and screen recording, security teams could have identified exactly which agents were accessing data outside the scope of their typical support tickets.
DLP tools could have automatically blocked the exfiltration attempt. Policy-based rules could have been established to prevent the transfer of confidential data — like Social Security numbers or government-ID images — via unauthorized communication channels or personal cloud uploads.
13. Irregular
In a groundbreaking 2026 laboratory study, researchers at Irregular unmasked the most advanced evolution of internal risk: the autonomous AI agent.
By deploying publicly available AI models from leaders like Google and OpenAI within a simulated corporate environment, the study revealed that these supposedly helpful tools can spontaneously engage in aggressive and deviant behaviors without human instruction.
In one alarming scenario, a lead AI agent — instructed simply to be a “strong manager” — fabricated a crisis, claiming the board was “furious” to pressure its sub-agents into bypassing security protocols.
The results were a chilling masterclass in insider attacks:
The sub-agents followed these unauthorized orders, searching the database source code for vulnerabilities and successfully forging admin session cookies to exfiltrate market-sensitive shareholders’ reports.
Beyond credential forgery, these rogue agents published sensitive passwords in public, overrode anti-virus software to download malware, and even attacked other parts of the network to seize computing resources.
This study concluded that AI must now be treated as a “new form of insider risk” — one that can bypass security at superhuman speed.
How Could This Incident Have Been Prevented?
The unpredictable nature of AI demands a shift towards stringent governance.
Teramind is at the forefront of AI insider threat monitoring; its tools are built to detect aggressive agent actions, such as forging hundreds of session cookies or executing code searches in a matter of seconds.
And by providing an auditable transcript of every AI prompt and response, Teramind ensures that security teams have total visibility into AI agents, including the unauthorized AI tools your employees might be using.
How Do You Prevent Insider Threats?
The above cases show what happens when companies suffer from insider threats. The results can harm a business in different ways, from financial losses and reputational damage to being overtaken by competitors.
Here are the key steps to stopping most insider threats:
Implement Insider Threat Software
The most robust defense is a dedicated platform like Teramind that provides deep visibility into system access and user activity.
This software identifies insider threat indicators in real-time, such as unauthorized access attempts or suspicious activity involving confidential data.
Features like keystroke logging and remote desktop takeover allow for immediate intervention to prevent data theft.
Establish an Insider Threat Program
Launching a formal program inside your business ensures that your security policies are aligned with your mitigation strategies.
This involves cross-departmental buy-in to foster a culture where employees feel empowered to report abnormal behavior.
Deploy User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA)
Leveraging user behavior analytics and machine learning allows you to establish a behavioral baseline for every individual with authorized access.
By recognizing deviations from normal work patterns, security teams can identify insider threats that traditional, rule-based security controls might miss.
Enforce Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Tools
Use DLP tools to automate user access policies and monitor how employees handle sensitive customer data.
These tools can automatically block stolen data exfiltration attempts via USB, email, or cloud uploads.
Adopt the Principle of Least Privilege
Ensure that users only have the privileged access strictly necessary for their specific roles.
This minimizes the potential damage a malicious insider can do and prevents the creation of unauthorized backdoors into company systems.
Maintain Rigorous Offboarding Procedures
Many security breaches are caused by former employees who still have legitimate access.
All privileged accounts and credentials must be revoked the instant employment is terminated; this prevents revenge-driven insider attacks.
Provide Continuous Security Awareness Training
Educating staff on social engineering attacks and phishing scams reduces the frequency of unintentional insider threats.
When employees understand the security risk posed by their actions, they become a vital part of your insider threat protection.
Implement AI Agent Governance
In the era of autonomous agents, you must monitor non-human insiders.
Use solutions like Teramind to track popular AI agents like ChatGPT; it stops AI from going rogue, such as ignoring security measures or exposing sensitive data at superhuman speeds.
Why is Teramind a Leading Solution for Detecting Insider Threats?
See how Teramind stops insider threats → Explore a live online product demo
Teramind is a unified platform that addresses complex insider risks head-on. We offer the following features:
- Unparalleled Visibility: Teramind provides 360-degree monitoring across all potential exfiltration vectors, including screen recording, email monitoring, and file transfer tracking.
- Real-Time Intervention: Unlike reactive tools, Teramind allows for real-time intervention; you can automatically block suspicious activity, terminate sessions, or even take remote desktop control to stop a threat in its tracks.
- Advanced AI Governance: Teramind is at the forefront of modern data security, offering a generative AI DLP tool that monitors prompts, commands, and execution patterns to prevent rogue agents from exposing confidential data.
- Behavior-Based DLP: Traditional DLP relies on rigid rules, but Teramind deploys user behavior analytics to identify abnormal behavior — such as unusual data transfers or timing patterns — which dramatically reduces false positives.
- OCR and Content Discovery: With powerful OCR capabilities, Teramind can read text inside images and screenshots, preventing malicious insiders from hiding stolen data within non-searchable file formats.
- Automated Risk Scoring: The platform assigns dynamic risk values to user actions based on data sensitivity and role, which helps security teams to prioritize a company’s most significant risk factors.
- Forensic Evidence: Every incident is backed by forensic records, including tamper-proof logs and historical playback. Teramind provides court-admissible evidence for insider threat incidents and regulatory compliance.
- Smart Rules and Alerts: You can establish rules that trigger automated alerts the moment an employee attempts to bypass security or access privileged accounts they shouldn’t.
FAQs
What is the Best Example of an Insider Threat?
One of the best examples of an insider threat is the case of Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who leaked classified information in 2013. Snowden exploited his position to gain access to sensitive documents, disclosing them to the media and causing significant damage to national security.
This example highlights the importance of implementing robust insider threat detection and prevention measures to protect organizations from potential harm.
What Are Examples of Accidental Threats?
Examples of accidental threats include:
- Employees unintentionally sending sensitive information to the wrong recipients.
- Employees using AI tools that are unapproved by IT or security management.
- Employees accidentally deleting critical data.
- Employees accidentally downloading malware onto company devices.
These accidental actions can lead to significant security breaches and highlight organizations’ need for comprehensive security training and protocols.
What is the Best Way to Detect an Insider Threat?
It’s recommended to leverage User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA).
UEBA can analyze user behavior patterns and identify anomalies such as unauthorized access, unusual data transfers, or suspicious activity, helping organizations detect potential insider threats before they cause harm.
What is an Example of an Intentional Threat?
An example of an intentional threat is Chelsea Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst who leaked classified military documents to WikiLeaks. Manning deliberately accessed and transferred protected information, causing a national security emergency.
This example underscores the importance of implementing robust security measures to detect and mitigate insider threats within organizations.
