How to monitor suspicious user behavior?

Customers are the heart of any business or organization. The truth is, without customers there would be no business, no matter how good and unique the product they are offering is. Where would Amazon, Facebook or even Google be now, if they didn’t have customers to make them into the tech giant they are now. This is why all the businesses or organizations regardless of their size, need to put their customers’ needs first. The main concern customers share regarding dealing with any business is how protected they are during that process.

Since the start of the pandemic the number of cyber attacks is on the rise, and people are demanding that cyber security systems step it up.

Most businesses and organizations are starting to listen to their customers and they are doing everything in their power to ensure the safety of their customers and the business itself. They are implementing various security tools designed to help them to spot any malicious insiders, compromised accounts, malware infections, social engineering attacks and other cyber threats that might occur. One of these methods is User Activity Monitoring.

What is User Activity Monitoring?

User Activity Monitoring is a process of monitoring and tracking the activity and behavior of your users and alerting you when something is not as it is supposed to be so that you can react in a timely manner. Its main goal is to confirm the data is used responsibly and to reduce the risk of data breaches. Simply put, it is a preventive tool that is indispensable in the fight against cyber attacks as it can help you detect the attack before it even happens and stop it in the root. Were you aware that in 2021 it took around 287 days to identify and contain a data breach, which is a whole week longer than the previous year? By using user activity monitoring you can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to identify suspicious user behavior and respond to it before any damage is done.

How to monitor suspicious user behavior?

The type of user activity monitoring you need of course depends on your business and what do you want to accomplish. By monitoring key areas, you consider important for your business, you can detect anomalies and prevent cyber security issues. There are a number of key areas you can monitor, but we will mention the three most important ones.

1. Browser fingerprint

As was stated here on browser fingerprinting is a crucial tool in fraud prevention. Just like the unique lines of your finger create your fingerprint, in the same way different variables that are unique to your browser create your browser fingerprint. Browser fingerprint can be based on hundreds of variables like the device you are using, operating system, language settings, system fonts, sensors, keyboard layout and much more. By monitoring the users’ unique personal fingerprint, it will be easy to notice when something is different and react on time.

2. Network activity

By monitoring network activity you can notice anomalies like a drastic change in the volume of the traffic or use of the different patterns of activity and investigate it immediately.

3. User access

By monitoring the users’ access, you can notice when there is a troublesome change in the user activity like the user having multiple failed attempts to log in or accessing the network remotely or at odd hours and react before any damage is done.

The best way to ensure the protection of your users is to combine them with additional cyber security tools like multi-factor verification. But the most important element in ensuring the safety of your organization is education. All of your organization needs to be aware of what to do in case of a cyber attack, but they are not the only ones. By keeping your customer informed and educated you will add an additional layer to your security.

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