Firms 'need to do more to boost data security'

New research has indicated that data security and backup is still a problem for a significant number of firms.

The poll by Databarracks showed that 50 per cent of businesses do not encrypt data backed up from their systems, while 36 per cent of companies revealed that their data backups are carried out by an employee who takes this work home.

One-fifth of respondents said they used an automated offsite service to back up their data, but 41 per cent said they were either not in compliance with data protection laws or had concerns that they might not be compliant.

"We expected to see the number of backups that were written to tapes and then transported in an unencrypted format to have plummeted," said Peter Groucutt, managing director of Databarracks.

He added that instead it seems organisations have not yet learned lessons from previous data security and backup failures.

Donna Childs of Childs Capital recently told the Canadian Press that companies - potentially including web hosting organisations - have the opportunity to reassure their clients by demonstrating that they have a solid data backup procedure in place.

Written by Dipika Patel