The Federation Against Software Theft and Investors in Software (FAST IiS) has launched a new data management scheme set to deliver knowledge on security products for businesses, it has emerged.

FAST IiS hopes to highlight the importance of having data loss protection systems in place in case of the possibility of a data leak.

Commenting on the reasons for undertaking the scheme, chief executive of FAST IiS John Lovelock said: "An organisation's data is often its most important asset and yet they rarely have adequate visibility or control of that data."

He added that in light of a survey made by KPMG - where 1,034 data breaches were recorded in a three-year period resulting in the loss of the details of 280 million people - he felt his organisation needed to "educate the market as a whole in this potentially damaging liability".

More than three-quarters of business leaders believe companies would try to cut costs by not obtaining software licences for their programs, a survey for FAST IiS revealed this year.

A recent survey for Connect found that one in ten companies has lost important data as a result of a backup failure. The company has now developed a unique online backup service - http://www.connect.co.uk/services/online_backup – for SMEs to ensure they can survive any disaster.