The Role of Whistleblowers in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is increasingly a matter of law, not just a best practice for businesses. Lapses in security become more serious as cybercrime grows and data becomes more critical to business and everyday life.

Consequently, whistleblowers are becoming a bigger part of the security industry.

Whistleblowers are employees who report their companies or co-workers for misconduct, often anonymously. In a cybersecurity context, that typically means calling businesses out for failing to employ proper cyber protections or not disclosing a breach.

Laws like the Whistleblower Protection Act protect these insiders from retaliation from the people they report, and as security concerns grow, more legislation addresses security whistleblowers specifically.

Here’s a deeper look at whistleblowers, their role in security, and how companies can deal with them.

Enforcing Regulations

The most important role of whistleblowers in cybersecurity is to hold companies accountable to security regulations. Data breach laws are becoming more common, but enforcing them in every instance can be challenging, with over 15 million records leaking in 2022 alone.

Whistleblowers fill in the enforcement gaps where government organizations may miss things.

Despite the U.S. lacking comprehensive national cybersecurity legislation, all 50 states and Washington, D.C., have data breach disclosure laws. These rules require companies to let people know when a breach affects their personal information under certain circumstances.

However, it can be tempting to keep things quiet, hoping to avoid reputational damage.

When this happens and companies try to hide breaches, whistleblowers ensure affected parties hear about incidents that may require action on their part. Their reports also help legal agencies enforce these laws more effectively.

Highlighting Security Gaps

A less obvious but still critical role whistleblowers play in security is to bring attention to cybersecurity shortcomings. The rising threat of insider breaches highlights how employees can break security protocols without IT teams or company leadership knowing.

Whistleblowers can catch and report these incidents.

Employees who notice co-workers or managers acting suspiciously on company networks can report it without fear of retaliation due to whistleblower protections. The business can then catch mismanagement earlier, addressing these vulnerabilities before they cause more damage.

As more insiders catch and report these cases, they’ll reveal where company policies and enforcement fall short. Organizations can then reassess and adjust their security posture as necessary to minimize vulnerabilities.

This can prevent more breaches, protecting employees and customers.

Raising Cybersecurity Standards

Increased whistleblower activity can also promote better security standards across entire industries. As more of these cases fill headlines, even companies that haven’t experienced a breach or hidden shortcomings could feel pressure to improve their security.

Fines for noncompliance with data security laws can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, even breaching $1 billion in extreme cases. That doesn’t include losses from lost business and customer churn after more people hear about the breach, either.

Those figures should be high enough to make any company want to ensure regulatory compliance as much as possible.

As more companies see whistleblowers holding other businesses accountable for noncompliance, it’ll push them to go above and beyond legal standards. Fear of these substantial losses will drive organizations to employ stronger security.

More consumers can rest assured their data is safe as that trend continues.

Potential Challenges Amid Rising Whistleblower Protections

As these examples highlight, whistleblowers play an important role in cybersecurity. However, challenges can arise as this role becomes more prominent.

Protections could encourage more whistleblower activity, putting some companies in a delicate position with their compliance programs.

Just as a malicious insider may leak company documents as an act of revenge, disgruntled employees may report their higher-ups for noncompliance out of revenge. Issues arise when whistleblower claims lack substantial evidence.

Rising protections and the fact that some courts are friendlier to fraud allegations than others could give weaker reports a better chance of resulting in financial fallout for the company.

It’s also worth noting that cybersecurity is a challenging consideration, so adapting to new regulations or addressing every vulnerability in minimal time is difficult. Some businesses may lack the resources or relevant expertise to do so.

That could create a tricky situation where a company faces legal challenges over issues it would’ve addressed but couldn’t within the given timeline.

Cybercrime poses a significant threat to consumers, so tighter regulations are an important part of preserving public safety.

However, if companies can’t reasonably meet these guidelines, whistleblower incidents could leave well-meaning but under-equipped businesses facing considerable fines and business loss.

How Should Companies Approach Cybersecurity Whistleblowers?

Amid these challenges and whistleblowers’ vital role in cybersecurity, organizations may be unsure how to handle things. It can be challenging, but businesses should start by acknowledging that whistleblowers are not the bad guys.

Regardless of specific employees’ motivations, whistleblowers hold companies accountable for lapses in security. Consequently, the answer should be to improve cybersecurity, not to take down whistleblowers.

Businesses that want to be safe from whistleblower cases should focus on regulatory compliance, preventing any situations where claims could arise.

Several technologies can make this compliance easier, helping smaller businesses avoid concerns about overreaching whistleblower claims. Automated network monitoring and discovery tools are some of the most helpful.

Improving visibility over connected devices can eliminate 80% of organizations’ risk in some cases by making it easier to spot and fix vulnerabilities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools can also automatically detect potential noncompliance with relevant regulations and adjust as necessary to meet them.

These fast, automatic processes are lifesavers when companies lack the workforce resources to discover and manage every issue across every device.

Whistleblowers Play a Critical Role in Cybersecurity

Whistleblowers may not be an official part of a company’s cybersecurity posture, but they serve an important purpose in the security industry as a whole.

Ideally, businesses will never have to deal with these cases, but that should come from a place of compliance, not discouraging whistleblowers themselves.

Organizations must take regulatory compliance more seriously as whistleblower protections rise. That trend can push more companies toward a higher security standard, reducing cybercrime’s impact on their business and customers.