Insufficient levels of IT security at French bank Societe Generale were partly to blame for the loss of 3.7 billion GBP, it has been claimed.

An internal investigation found that the loss - which the bank says was the work of one rogue trader - might have been avoided if the firm had had stronger IT security measures in place.

The introduction of biometric identification and reinforced alert procedures will go some way to preventing any future fraud, the report found.

Societe Generale blames the massive losses on one man, Jerome Kerviel, a junior trader at the bank and the investigation's preliminary results state that there is "no evidence of embezzlement, internal or external complicity", although the enquiry is ongoing.

Last week Computing.co.uk reported that Tony Neate of Get Safe Online was calling on the EU to help educate firms about the importance of IT security and protecting their data and systems.

More than half of small businesses (53%) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support, London based Connect conducted the research in 2007.