Plan for Insider Risk Management

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Insider risks are actions by individuals within an organization that could harm its data, systems, or people. These risks are a growing concern for businesses. To address them, Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management provides tools to detect, investigate, and respond to potentially harmful activities.

Before implementing these tools, it's essential to plan your strategy, ensure all prerequisites are met, and configure the solution to fit your organization's needs.

Plan for Insider Risk Management

Preparing to implement Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management requires careful planning and collaboration across your organization.

Collaborate with stakeholders

Effective insider risk management begins with identifying the right stakeholders. Since insider risks often span multiple functions, collaboration across departments is crucial. Your planning team should include representatives from:

• IT and security: Configure systems and ensure technical integrations.
• Compliance and privacy: Align policies with regulatory requirements.
• Human resources: Provide context for role changes or employee departures.
• Legal: Address cases requiring escalation to legal oversight.

By working together, these groups can create a cohesive approach to managing alerts and cases while respecting privacy and maintaining objectivity.

Understand regional compliance requirements

If your organization operates in multiple regions, compliance and privacy regulations might vary. Address these differences by tailoring your policies and processes to specific regions or roles. Consider these factors:

• Design policies that restrict access to sensitive information based on location or role.
• Assign investigators fluent in the languages used by employees to streamline reviews.
• Maintain privacy by anonymizing user identities during investigations whenever possible.

This tailored approach ensures that insider risk management supports compliance while maintaining trust with employees.

Define roles and permissions

Insider Risk Management uses role-based access controls to delegate responsibilities effectively. For instance, an investigator might review alerts related to data theft while administrators manage policy configurations globally. Plan for the following key roles:

• Administrators to configure global settings and policies.
• Analysts and Investigators to review alerts and manage cases.
• Viewers to review dashboards for trends and risks.

Assign these roles based on organizational responsibilities, ensuring that each team member has access to the tools and data they need.

Understand prerequisites and dependencies

Before configuring Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management, verify that your organization meets licensing and prerequisite requirements.

• Licensing: Insider Risk Management requires a Microsoft 365 E5 license or equivalent. Verify that your tenant is hosted in a region supported by Azure service dependencies.

• Policy template prerequisites: Specific templates have additional requirements:

  • Data theft by departing users: Requires configuring an HR connector to import resignation and termination data.
  • Data leaks: Requires creating and deploying a data loss prevention policy to define sensitive information.
  • Security policy violation: Requires integration with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to import security alerts.
  • Risky user: Requires configuring an HR connector to import performance or role change data.

Meeting these requirements ensures the necessary data and signals are available to your policies.

Test with a small group

Start with a small-scale deployment to evaluate the effectiveness of your policies. Use a production environment with a limited group of users to assess real-world scenarios and ensure configurations work as intended. During testing:

• Enable anonymization to protect user identities and reduce potential bias during investigations.
• Use the Users dashboard to review individuals included in insider risk management policies, focusing on risk indicators, activities, and alerts to ensure policy conditions are identifying potential risks appropriately.
• Adjust policy thresholds and configurations as needed based on results from this test group.

For example, you might test a Data theft by departing users policy to identify file downloads by employees who are resigning.

Prepare resources for stakeholders

Provide stakeholders with the resources they need to succeed. Share documentation on creating policies, investigating activities, and resolving cases. Important resources include:

• Create and manage insider risk management policies.
• Investigate insider risk management activities.
• Review data with the insider risk management content explorer.

Providing stakeholders with these materials ensures consistency and alignment across teams.

With careful planning and testing, your organization can confidently implement Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management and foster a secure, compliant, and trusted workplace. Once your policies and settings are in place, you can begin detecting, investigating, and responding to insider risks effectively while prioritizing compliance and employee privacy.