Insufficient action is being taken by companies in the UK to prevent data theft and security threats to their businesses, according to a leading research company.

Senior privacy analyst at the Ponemon Institute Mike Spinney said that as soon as a company had experienced a breach of security, they would then realise it was something that could have been prevented and not an inevitability.

He recommended that companies "engage employees on such policies through educational and awareness programs and invest in the technologies that can allow a company to monitor, enforce, prevent, and protect".

Last year, the Ponemon Institute found that 59 per cent of employees who had lost or left their job had admitted to stealing confidential information from their former employer.

Of those stating their theft of company data, 61 per cent said they had an "unfavourable" view of their former employer, with those in the financial sector being the most likely to take information.

New research from Connect found that, on average, it takes businesses that use backup tapes take 11.6 hours to retrieve and restore files. Connect is now recommending that SMEs switch to www.connect.co.uk/services/online_backup.