The message has largely sunk in: IT security is a massive problem and ignoring it does not make an organisation immune to attack. For years we have been told to batten down the hatches, to put up defences to keep the baddies out and at all costs to avoid the time, money and inconvenience associated with a virus attack.

Protecting reputation and brand is imperative. As the web became more prominent as a way of doing business, organisations rushed to prevent their sites from falling over and losing business.

And then things grew nastier. The hassle attack started to disappear and organised crime arrived online. Phishing claimed its position as a security threat, and gangs of criminals bent on stealing information to defraud us became the new face of security.

But that does not matter, because we can deal with baddies. We are the goodies, after all. We do not mind sitting in our modern offices fretting about those Eastern European crime gangs that are plotting to steal our wares, because it is still them against us. But not for much longer.

It is wake-up time for businesses. Those baddies are not holed up in a basement in Latvia. They are in your office.

Businesses are facing a huge cultural upheaval because the biggest threat is the threat from within. Research published in March by BDO Stoy Hayward says employee fraud rose by 80 per cent last year, costing businesses £67m.

Security companies are positioning themselves accordingly. Jeremy Burton, a senior vice president at Symantec, says the software firm’s recent acquisition of Veritas has provided an opportunity to look into its crystal ball.

‘We have set the business up for what the world will look like and not what it looks like now,’ he said.

Treating this new threat like any other will not work. While more software and services can alleviate some of the problems, businesses will have to change their cultures.

Instead of uniting and keeping the baddies out, organisations will have to adopt an air of suspicion: a guilty until proved innocent attitude.

Creating an atmosphere of mistrust will be difficult for many organisations that like to think they have loyal staff with the company’s best interests at heart.

But if predictions about internal fraud prove accurate, mistrust will have to become ingrained in business.