The Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has released a report warning that inexperienced users pose a threat to computer network security.

BERR's research reveals that seven out of eight firms have computer network information security policies in place.

However, many of these are deemed to be ineffective, often due to companies allowing staff to access computer networks remotely, which opens up networks to the threat of cyber criminals.

UK information security consultancy dns said: "Responsibility rests with each organisation to implement their own security policy and ensure that they are fully protected."

It added: "While it is commendable that many companies have taken steps to protect themselves, they can't hope to keep mitigating threats if users are not taking basic precautions when accessing the network remotely."

The news comes at a time when the European Commission (EC) has revealed that half of UK firms believe current data protection legislation is not suitable for protecting personal data.

An EC survey of 300 UK data controllers found that 36 per cent did not think the current Data Protection Act (DPA) was very well suited to the amount of personal information being exchanged and 14 per cent said the DPA was not at all suited for this purpose.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent)