Businesses let down by 'back-up' procedures

UK companies are increasingly reliant on electronic data, but many are finding that their 'backup' procedures are letting them down, it emerged today.

The initial findings of the latest Department of Trade and Industry's (DTI) "Information Security Breaches Survey", conducted by a consortium led by PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed that only one-third of businesses store their backups off-site.

The survey of around 1,000 firms also revealed that only 8% had actually tested their IT disaster recovery plans to see if they would actually work in practice.

The vast majority of UK businesses - 87% according to this latest poll - now report "significant dependence" on electronic data, up from 76% two years ago. With such a heavy reliance on data most (88%) businesses questioned said they found it "very easy to justify the cost of backup and disaster recovery facilities."

Major disruption
The survey found that around two-thirds of large businesses suffered an incident in the last year where they had to restore significant data from backup. The main reasons given were because of systems failure or physical theft of equipment. Roughly half suffered "major disruption" to their business operations as a result, some for up to a month.

Chris Potter, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: "Many businesses do not realise the value of their data until it is too late. Others think they have good backup systems in place, but then discover they are unreliable when needed.

"Also, we often find it the case, and the findings support this, that IT staff are unaware of what data is business critical and so should be backed up. There is a disconnect between the boardroom and the IT function which is potentially dangerous."

Better backup
Almost one quarter (23%) of respondents to the survey said that better backup and contingency plans would have helped to prevent their worst security in the past year, and that 15% had now made changes to their procedures as a result.

A fact sheet has been published outlining the main findings of the 'backups and recovery' survey ahead of the publication of the main security breaches report at the end of April.

Roelou Barry, CEO of backup and recovery specialists Attix5, which sponsored the fact sheet, commented: "The research reveals a worrying trend. Most businesses only backup their servers, yet critical business information is often distributed across the entire extended enterprise, from servers and desktops to laptops and mobile computing devices. That's like only insuring the engine in your car and not worrying about the tyres and brakes.

"Businesses need to implement an automated online backup solution which can protect any type of data no matter where it's stored or however a user is connected."

Johnny Thomson