What would you do if you wanted to steal data from an organisation? Perform some kind of complicated external hack? Orchestrate a social engineering attack? Well, the best thing, it seems, is to infiltrate the organisation in question. Become a trusted insider and steal data that way.

According to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in the UK, employees themselves are still the greatest threat to a company's security. Why try to circumvent complex firewalls in order to penetrate a company's network, when getting a job there will do?

Speaking today at the Infosecurity conference in London, Tony Neate, e-crime liaison for the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), said insider 'plants' are causing significant damage to companies.

He said: "We have fraud and ID theft but one of the big threats still comes from the trusted insiders. That is people inside the company who are attacking the systems.