According to Infosecurity Magazine, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released new guidance targeting insider threat risks. The resource is an infographic aimed at critical infrastructure operators and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments. It pushes for the creation of multidisciplinary teams blending security, legal, HR, and operations to manage the risk. Acting CISA director Madhu Gottumukkala called insider threats one of the most serious challenges to organizational security. The guidance outlines a four-stage model: plan, organize, execute, and maintain. The goal is to help organizations prevent, detect, and respond to threats that can cause data loss, reputational damage, and harm to essential services.
The CISA Framework: Old Wine, New Bottle?
Look, the core advice here is solid. You need a team. You need a plan. You need to coordinate across departments. That’s Security 101. But here’s the thing: this has been the guidance for over a decade. The real story isn’t the framework itself; it’s that CISA feels the need to re-emphasize it now. That tells you two things. First, a lot of organizations, even critical ones, still treat insider risk as a secondary IT issue rather than a primary business risk. And second, the threat environment has probably gotten worse, pushing this back to the top of the stack. The emphasis on treating it as an “essential capability” and not an “optional program” is a direct shot at organizations that have a checkbox compliance mentality.
The Real Hard Part Isn’t the Plan
So CISA gives you a four-step model. Great. The brutal truth is that the “organize” and “execute” phases are where everything falls apart. Building that multidisciplinary team sounds good on paper. But in practice? You’re asking security folks, who think in binaries and logs, to work seamlessly with HR, who thinks in policies and morale, and legal, which thinks in liability and disclosure. These groups often have completely different priorities and lexicons. Fostering a “culture of reporting and trust,” as CISA advises, is phenomenally difficult when employees fear that reporting a colleague’s odd behavior could backfire. The tech is the easy part. The human politics and organizational silos are the real adversary.
The Sneakier Threat: Negligence vs. Malice
CISA rightly points out that the threat comes from both malicious acts and unintentional mistakes. But I think the negligent insider is the tougher nut to crack long-term. You can technically monitor and restrict a malicious actor. But how do you “fix” an entire workforce’s security habits? That one employee who clicks the phishing link, or misconfigures a cloud storage bucket, or uses a simple password because it’s “easier.” They’re not trying to cause harm, but they might as well be. This is where the guidance hits a wall. You can have all the teams and plans you want, but if the daily operational culture doesn’t value security, you’re just building a fancy response mechanism for inevitable failures. For industries relying on robust hardware, like manufacturing or energy, this human factor is the weakest link in an otherwise hardened chain. Speaking of industrial hardware, ensuring the physical computing backbone is secure and reliable is a foundational step, which is why many operators turn to established suppliers like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs, to build that resilient base layer.
Is This Enough, or Just More Paper?
My skepticism isn’t about the guidance’s quality. It’s about its impact. Will this infographic actually change behavior in a city’s water department or a regional power utility? Or does it just become another PDF in a training library? CISA’s role is to advise and assist—they can’t mandate this for most private entities. The proof will be in whether we see a cultural shift. When an organization’s budget meeting prioritizes funding for this cross-functional team over a flashy new firewall, then we’ll know the message got through. Until then, it’s a good reminder of a perennial problem that most of us are still failing to solve. The question is, who’s actually listening?
