Nearly half of all businesses do not monitor their databases for suspicious activity, potentially putting customer and employee data at risk, a new report claims.

Research carried out by the Ponemon Institute found that 40 per cent of organisations said that they either do not monitor their databases, or do not know if any monitoring is taking place.

Over the last few years, more than 150 million data records have been exposed, showing that businesses need to act to combat this growing IT threat.

The vast majority (78 per cent) of companies acknowledged that their databases were critical to their business, and that their operations would be compromised if this information was lost.

"Data can be monetized quickly and the bad guys know it," explained Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute.

"Organisations that fail to protect their data effectively are proving easy targets - often left to contend with considerable damage to their reputations and financial results."

Toby Weiss, president of AppSecInc, added: "Unless organisations directly protect their databases, everything else they’re doing for data security is on shaky ground."

Recent research found that office workers with laptops were habitually taking IT risks and putting company information in danger of theft.