New research has suggested that issues of human error are responsible for a major amount of data security issues.

The study by software giant Microsoft, which highlighted the importance of disaster recovery plans, found that nearly 48 per cent of reported data losses were the result of the loss or theft of a business's IT equipment.

According to reports, it was revealed that the decision of people to open emails which include malicious codes also caused a major number of issues for companies.

Microsoft's general manager of product security, George Stathakopoulos, told the Seattle Times that it is becoming increasingly important for employees to protect sensitive data from "physical access".

He added that hackers are now creating "a much more targeted and finessed attack" on the systems of companies.

The release of the new report has come after Microsoft launched a pre-beta version of a new operating system.

Windows 7 is expected to be released at some point after next summer.

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