The website collapse suffered by Northern Rock during its recent woes illustrates potential weaknesses in other online and business IT services.

When the bank sought a liquidity support facility from the Bank of England it provoked a bank run, including an online run, and the Northern Rock website allegedly buckled under the strain.

Although some have speculated that it may have been partly human intervention that stopped many from accessing their bank details online, it illustrates the vulnerability that many companies may face if their computers do not have enough computing power to weather a similar crisis.

Ken Allan, an IT specialist at Ernst & Young, told ITPro: "I would be willing to bet that at the very least, all of the IT delivery managers at big banks will be reviewing their systems and saying: 'there but for the grace of God'."

He added that firms should have business continuity plans in place, such as having a reliable phone-in service that can be scaled up in the event of a crisis.

Research for Connect in 2007 found that 88 per cent of UK businesses were interested in Disaster Recovery systems primarily to protect their critical applications and data