The 9th edition of the IT Trends reports that 40% of cybersecurity threats originate from internal resources, whether malicious or unintentional. This figure highlights a frequently underestimated reality—cybersecurity risks are not confined to the organization’s external perimeter.
By nature, the human factor is one of the most complex elements to control. Widespread remote work, the proliferation of access rights, and increased reliance on email and collaboration tools have caused digital environments to expand faster than the governance models designed to secure them. As a result, gray areas emerge, creating fertile ground for security drift and incidents.
Legitimate Access That Becomes Uncontrolled
In many organizations, access rights accumulate more quickly than they are reviewed. In the name of efficiency or agility, extended privileges are granted—and too often retained indefinitely.
The real risk does not lie in access itself, but in its misalignment with operational reality:
- employees retaining access rights that no longer correspond to their current role
- highly privileged accounts used in day-to-day operations, outside of a strict control framework
- technical access that is poorly documented—or entirely invisible to security teams
These situations create a silent attack surface that is difficult to detect and even harder to control. Actions are carried out using valid authorizations, which significantly complicates the identification of abnormal or high-risk behavior. When an incident occurs, the damage has often already been done.
High-Impact Human Errors Affecting Data
The majority of incidents related to the human factor do not stem from malicious intent, but rather from routine actions performed within complex, constrained environments. A poorly formulated query, an overly permissive data export, or an error in the target environment can be sufficient to expose sensitive information.
Time pressure, the growing number of analytics tools, and system fragmentation mechanically increase this risk. As environments become more hybrid and interconnected, the likelihood of high-impact human errors continues to rise.
The primary risk lies in their lack of visibility: such errors often remain undetected by traditional security controls. When they are eventually identified, data exposure has already occurred and may be irreversible.
Social Engineering and Identity Compromise
Social engineering attacks continue to grow in sophistication. Rather than targeting systems directly, they increasingly focus on individuals by exploiting well-established psychological mechanisms—trust, urgency, authority, or habitual professional behavior.
Once an identity is compromised, the security paradigm shifts:
- the attacker operates using fully legitimate access
- traditional perimeter-based controls lose effectiveness
- malicious activity blends into normal operational traffic
In this context, the human factor becomes a significant risk multiplier. Suspicious behaviors are difficult to distinguish from authorized usage, which substantially complicates detection and delays incident response.
Loss of Visibility in Hybrid Environments
Hybrid work models, widespread cloud adoption, and the growing reliance on third parties have fundamentally transformed how data is accessed. In many organizations, however, security policies struggle to evolve at the same pace as the environments they are meant to govern.
This imbalance results in concrete operational drift:
- security rules applied inconsistently across environments
- partial visibility into user activity and privileged account behavior
- persistent blind spots in the monitoring of critical data
In this context, risk is no longer solely a technical concern. It becomes organizational and structural, driven by fragmented governance and a lack of alignment between tools, processes, and accountability.
2. How IBM Guardium Addresses Human Factor Risks
Rather than attempting to eliminate the human factor—an approach that is both unrealistic and ineffective—mature security strategies focus on controlling its impact. The objective is no longer absolute control, but enhanced visibility, traceability, and governance around sensitive data.
IBM Guardium is designed precisely with this approach in mind.
Observing Behavior, Not Just Access
A first key use case involves monitoring activity on databases, where an organization’s most critical assets reside. IBM Guardium goes beyond answering the question “who has access to what” by enabling organizations to understand how data is being used, in what context, and according to which behavioral patterns.
Consider a common scenario:
- an employee in the finance department typically accesses a limited set of records
- suddenly, that employee executes large-scale or unusual queries
- access remains legitimate, but the behavior clearly deviates from the norm
In such situations, the objective is not to systematically block the user, but to rapidly detect behavioral deviations that may indicate human error, privilege abuse, or identity compromise. This approach enables targeted, proportionate, and above all proactive intervention—before an incident escalates into a data breach or an operational crisis.
Reducing Risks Associated with Excessive Privileges
Another frequently observed scenario involves overly broad access rights, granted for operational efficiency or simply maintained over time without formal reassessment. Excessive privileges represent a major risk factor for human error, insider abuse, and high-impact security incidents.
IBM Guardium enables organizations to:
- identify over-privileged accounts and gaps between granted rights and actual usage
- precisely track the effective use of privileges, beyond theoretical authorizations
- support the rigorous, measurable, and continuous enforcement of the principle of least privilege
This approach significantly reduces risks related to negligence, handling errors, and inappropriate usage, while strengthening access governance without compromising productivity.
Enhanced Traceability and Streamlined Investigations
When an incident occurs, the challenge is not limited to rapid containment. It also involves accurately reconstructing events in order to assess impact, extract lessons learned, and meet regulatory requirements.
A typical scenario:
- a data breach is suspected
- the organization must determine which data was accessed, by which users, and at what time
- available logs are incomplete, fragmented, or difficult to analyze
Through detailed and centralized logging of data activity, IBM Guardium provides the visibility required to accelerate internal investigations, structure incident response, and produce reliable evidence—both for audit purposes and regulatory compliance.
Governing the Human Factor Without Compromising Productivity
The adoption of advanced security solutions largely depends on their ability to integrate without disrupting teams. Approaches perceived as restrictive or punitive inevitably lead to workarounds—and, consequently, to new risks.
Rather than imposing additional controls on users, the objective is to secure data in the background by relying on observed real-world usage, rather than on an accumulation of rigid rules disconnected from operational reality.
This approach makes it possible to:
- preserve the fluidity of day-to-day operations
- reduce internal friction between IT, security, and business teams
- sustainably strengthen the protection of critical data
By governing the human factor in an intelligent and proportionate manner, security shifts from being a constraint to becoming a driver of trust and performance.
3. NOVIPRO Support
As with any cybersecurity solution, the value of a platform like IBM Guardium depends as much on the surrounding expertise as on the technology itself. Without structured guidance, even the most capable platforms struggle to deliver their full potential.
This is where NOVIPRO’s approach comes into play. Upfront, our teams assist organizations in selecting solutions that best fit their operational reality, taking into account data management, compliance requirements, and overall cybersecurity maturity. The goal: to avoid over-engineered deployments or implementations misaligned with actual usage.
During implementation, NOVIPRO integrates and optimizes IBM Guardium within existing environments, aligning security policies with internal processes in a practical and actionable manner. This approach promotes smooth adoption and measurable value from the earliest stages of use.
Beyond deployment, NOVIPRO provides ongoing support through cybersecurity training, vulnerability and penetration testing, and the development of business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Organizations may also choose to delegate operational management to our experts, maintaining a high level of protection without overburdening internal teams.
In a context where the human factor remains central, expertise and structured support become essential levers for turning security tools into genuine strategic assets.
