Where Insider Signals Come From

Not all alerts arrive the same way, and the origin says more about how to treat one than its severity rating does.

The distinction made in “Where Insider Signals Come From” should also shape any workforce technology used near an investigation. When reviewers consult read the provider overview for self report bias, its records can provide operational context, but a signal still needs validation, a stated threshold and a human decision before it becomes a finding.

Automated rules

A defined condition in a monitoring or data-loss system. High volume, mechanical, context-free.

For a separate perspective relevant to “Where Insider Signals Come From”, consult the Mandiant security resources. Use it to test the proposed threshold, investigation scope and review process rather than to substitute a generic checklist for the facts of a case.

Reliability varies enormously by rule. A rule matching a specific file identifier is precise; one matching a volume threshold fires on anybody doing a large legitimate task.

Worth knowing, per rule, what proportion of its firings have ever led anywhere. Most organisations have never asked, and the answer for several rules is none.

Behavioural models

A deviation from a learned baseline, which is the subject of its own adjacent literature and is not covered here.

What matters for handling: a model says this is unusual for this person, not that it is wrong. Unusual is frequently a new project, a changed role, a colleague on leave, or a deadline.

A human report

Somebody noticed something and said so: a colleague, a manager, a customer.

This is the highest-value source in most programmes and the most fragile. It depends entirely on people believing that reporting leads to a proportionate response, which is what the whole of this collection is about preserving.

Also the source most likely to carry motive. A report arising from a dispute is still worth looking at and needs the conflict noted at the outset.

A downstream discovery

Something found while investigating something else, or during an audit, or when a system was being decommissioned.

Frequently historical, which changes the proportionality calculation: conduct from three years ago by somebody whose circumstances have changed is a different matter from conduct last week.

An external notification

A regulator, a partner, a customer, law enforcement.

Rare, serious, and it usually comes with constraints about what can be disclosed internally, which the covert stages note covers.

Why the source should be recorded first

Because it determines the handling, and because it is the detail most often lost. A case file that records what was found but not how it arrived cannot be assessed later for whether the response was proportionate to the trigger.

One field, at the top of every record: where did this come from.

The source that decays fastest

Human reports arrive once. If the response is slow or invisible the person does not report again, and nothing tells you that the channel has closed. Automated sources are persistent and self-announcing; the human one disappears quietly, which is why the closure communication in the later section matters more than it appears.

Recording motive where it exists

Where a report arises from a dispute, that is not a reason to disregard it and it is a fact about the evidence. Recording it protects the reporter as much as the subject: a report later found to be well-founded is stronger for having been handled with the context visible from the start.

The field that takes five seconds

Where did this come from. One dropdown at the top of every record, and it determines the handling for everything after. Its absence is why case files frequently describe what was found in detail and how the matter arrived not at all.

The report that arrives with a grievance attached

Still worth examining, and the conflict belongs in the record from the first line. Recording it is not a judgement about the reporter; it is the context that lets somebody assess the case properly a year later, and it protects the reporter if the finding is sound.

One field at the top

Where this came from, selected rather than typed. It determines the handling of everything that follows, and its absence is why case files routinely record what was found in detail and how it arrived not at all.