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Over the last few years scores of businesses have been brutally exposed to insider threats, often with devastatingly public consequences. This is because too many digital security offerings are deployed primarily to protect against external threats and as such, are insufficient when it comes to dealing with attacks that happen from within an organisation.

Three is just another example in a long line of similar incidents, including most recently Tesco Bank and at a larger scale Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Paper leaks. All have one thing in common – a single point of failure from within their organisations that was readily exploited.

Organisations like Three must reconsider how they protect their highest-value data and intellectual property and who accesses it as, there is a risk someone who works at the company was either part of a criminal gang, or was careless with critical logins. They have to assume data will be stolen or compromised, however secure they may seem and however loyal an employee may be.

In the physical world, it is harder for an asset to be stolen in critical organisations, given the level of security that is naturally in place. People have to sign into a building just to gain access, let alone get their hands on important company assets, which are guarded and tracked at all times. It is this kind of preventative techniques that must be replicated in the digital world at large companies like Three, to ensure their reputation and revenues remain intact.