When businesses consider insider threats, their minds immediately turn to technical controls – such as access controls, monitoring, and anomaly detection. However, a second aspect is also being explored more and more: the human brain. Psychological profiling and personality assessments, applied responsibly, can provide valuable insight into employee behavior, motivation, and potential risk indicators.
These methods are controversial, but they work. By combining an initial onboarding assessment with ongoing sentiment assessments of communications and staff surveys, businesses can create a more comprehensive picture of insider risk.
The Role of Psychological Profiling
Psychological profiling involves assessing traits, tendencies, and patterns that may influence an individual’s responses under stress, in the face of authority, or in the context of ethical dilemmas. Profiling, when it comes to insider threat detection, can:
Identify Risk-Predisposing Traits Early
Personality tests administered during onboarding can identify tendencies such as impulsive behavior, excessive risk-taking, or a lack of conscientiousness – traits that can be correlated with a higher propensity for insider threats.
Set a Baseline
Early measurements serve as a point of reference for later comparisons, facilitating the identification of changes in behavior or mood over time.
Aid Role Placement
Profiling can help position employees in a job that matches their abilities, thereby reducing the number of situations in which they are exposed to risky behavior.
Communications and Survey Sentiment Analysis
Organizations can continue to monitor employee performance after hiring using less intrusive, aggregate methods, such as communication analysis and sentiment analysis of employee surveys.
Email and Chat Sentiment Analysis
AI can flag patterns of frustration, hostility, or disengagement in company messages. These signals are early warnings, not definitive signs.
Employee Surveys
Surveys capture morale, trust in leadership, and perceptions of fairness. Shifts in sentiment may signal growing dissatisfaction.
Behavioral Drift Detection
Comparing baseline to current sentiment highlights changes worth further review.
The Controversy
While useful, sentiment analysis and profiling raise ethical and legal risks:
Privacy Concerns – Employees may feel their thoughts and feelings are being unjustifiably tracked.
False Positives – Any negative comment or personality trait is not necessarily a sign of wicked intention.
Bias and Discrimination – Profiling software unwittingly validates stereotypes or discriminates against neurodiverse individuals.
Trust and Culture – Over-monitoring can psychologically undermine trust, introducing the very disengagement it aims to prevent.
Best Practices for Responsible Use
To achieve a balance between security and ethics, organizations can:
Be Transparent – Clearly inform people what is being monitored and why.
Use Data in Context – Apply psychological and sentiment data as just one input among many, not as a single prediction in itself.
Ensure Human Oversight – analysts must review AI-driven insights before taking action.
Be selective in data collection, limit to essentials, and anonymize surveys when possible.
Focus on Support, Not Punishment – Use results to provide support, guidance, or tools rather than punishment.
Final Thoughts
Psychological profiling and personality assessments can enhance insider threat programs by highlighting the human factors that technology may overlook. Along with sentiment analysis and surveys, they help form an evolving, real-time risk portrait.
All equipment must be used thoughtfully. The goal is to understand behavior and offer support before danger grows. Ultimately, insider threat detection means fostering a healthy, open culture as much as deploying advanced analytics.
