(Carolyn Duffy Marsan, NetworkWorld) One of the biggest threats that organizations face is losing sensitive data - such as payment card or personally identifiable information about customers or employees - to theft from their own employees. The threat is greatest from systems and network administrators, who have privileged access to vast amounts of corporate data and are responsible for most compromised records in insider cases.

Heather Wyson, vice president of the fraud program at the BITS Financial Services Roundtable, says there has been an increase in insider incidents among U.S. financial services firms.

We spoke with CISOs and IT security experts about what practical steps IT departments can take to minimize the insider threat. Here's their advice:
1. Restrict and monitor users with special privileges
2. Keep user access and privileges current, particularly during times of job changes or layoffs
3. Monitor employees found guilty of minor online misconduct
4. Use software to analyze your log files and alert you when anomalies occur
5. Consider deploying data-loss prevention technology
6. Educate your employees about the insider threat