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name: detecting-insider-data-exfiltration-via-dlp description: > Detects insider data exfiltration by analyzing DLP policy violations, file access patterns, upload volume anomalies, and off-hours activity in endpoint and cloud logs. Uses pandas for behavioral analytics and statistical baselines. Use when investigating insider threats or building user behavior analytics for data loss prevention. domain: cybersecurity subdomain: security-operations tags: [detecting, insider, data, exfiltration] version: "1.0" author: mahipal license: Apache-2.0

Detecting Insider Data Exfiltration via DLP

Instructions

Analyze endpoint activity logs, cloud storage access, and email DLP events to detect data exfiltration patterns using behavioral baselines and statistical anomaly detection.

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_csv("file_activity.csv", parse_dates=["timestamp"])
# Baseline: average daily upload volume per user
baseline = df.groupby(["user", df["timestamp"].dt.date])["bytes_transferred"].sum()
user_avg = baseline.groupby("user").mean()

# Alert on users exceeding 3x their baseline
today = df[df["timestamp"].dt.date == pd.Timestamp.today().date()]
today_totals = today.groupby("user")["bytes_transferred"].sum()
anomalies = today_totals[today_totals > user_avg * 3]

Key indicators:

1. Upload volume exceeding 3x daily baseline
2. Access to files outside normal scope
3. Bulk downloads before resignation
4. Off-hours file access patterns
5. USB/external device usage spikes

Examples

# Detect off-hours activity
df["hour"] = df["timestamp"].dt.hour
off_hours = df[(df["hour"] < 6) | (df["hour"] > 22)]
suspicious = off_hours.groupby("user").size().sort_values(ascending=False)