Policy & Governance

The Role of Acceptable Use Policies in Insider Risk Management

Insider threats rarely emerge spontaneously or reveal themselves through immediate acts of serious harm. More often, they unfold gradually through subtle shifts in behavior, intent, or adherence to expected norms. As explored in our Behavioral Drift paper, this quiet erosion of boundaries can precede significant security incidents, often without triggering traditional alerts. This raises a critical question: what defines “expected” behavior in the first place?For most organizations, that expectation is captured, imperfectly or otherwise, in the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Too often relegated to onboarding paperwork or compliance checklists, the AUP should instead be recognized as a foundational operational control....