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Safeguarding From Within: Insider Risk Management in India

A Study on Strategies to Identify, Govern and Mitigate Insider Risk
Safeguarding From Within: Insider Risk Management in India

At a Glance

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, insider threats have emerged as one of the most pressing challenges for Indian enterprises. No longer rare or isolated, these risks—whether malicious, negligent, or accidental—can cause devastating financial, reputational, and regulatory damage. As organisations embrace digital transformation and adopt Generative AI (GenAI) tools, the potential for internal data leaks, policy breaches, and misuse of privileged access has grown exponentially.

This comprehensive study, jointly developed by Microsoft and Protiviti, draws on real-world insights from leading Indian organisations across BFSI, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, technology, and other sectors. It explores how regulatory mandates such as the SEBI Prohibition of Insider Trading Regulations and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) 2023 are shaping insider risk programmes, and why proactive, technology-enabled strategies are now a regulatory and business imperative.

The whitepaper underscores that effective insider risk management is about more than security—it’s about trust, compliance, and resilience. By combining data governance, access controls, and behavioral analytics, organisations can detect, prevent, and respond to insider incidents before they escalate, ensuring business continuity and safeguarding customer confidence in the AI-driven era.

Insider risk is no longer a hidden threat—it’s a strategic priority. In the age of AI and data-driven enterprises, protecting from within is not just about security, it’s about trust, compliance, and resilience
Key Insights

Key Insights

The study reveals significant security gaps in Indian enterprises that rely solely on basic SOC monitoring and DLP tools without a dedicated Insider Risk Management (IRM) programme:

  1. Basic Controls Without Advanced Analytics – Foundational security is in place, but lacks anomaly detection and behavioral insights.
  2. Siloed & Reactive Approach – Minimal collaboration between IT, HR, and legal teams leads to delayed or incomplete responses.
  3. No Privacy Safeguards – Alerts expose user identities, risking bias in investigations.
  4. Emerging Risk Channels Unmonitored – GenAI use, risky browser activity, and cloud uploads remain largely invisible.
  5. No Defined Insider Risk Triggers – Lacking automated early-warning indicators for suspicious patterns.
  6. Limited Data Integration – Inability to correlate HR events with IT activity leaves blind spots.
  7. High AI-Driven Risk Exposure – 84% of organisations feel unprepared to handle risky AI usage.
  8. Regulatory Pressure – Compliance with SEBI, RBI, IRDAI, and DPDPA demands stronger governance frameworks.
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Protiviti India Member Private Limited is the India Member Firm of the global network of Protiviti firms, a group of independent consulting firms helping companies solve problems in finance, technology, operations, governance, risk and internal audit.  Protiviti Member Firms are separate and independent legal entities, are not agents of other firms in the Protiviti network, and have no authority to obligate or bind other firms in the Protiviti network.

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