Following an international survey, it was established that 93 per cent of security professionals believe there is more pressure on companies to protect their company from data loss.

In the poll of 104 security professionals, Websense established that disgruntled former employees or those receiving pay cuts are central to such an issue, with cost-cutting measures also playing a part in this compounded misery.

Mark Murtagh, the technical director at Websense, highlighted the importance for small business in IT to adopt a disaster recovery strategy should systems go down as a result of such instances, adding that other measures should also be taken.

He explained: "By taking active steps like using a data loss prevention solution to trace inbound as well as outbound data leaks, and having visibility of where important and valuable data sits, companies greatly reduce the risk of becoming a statistic."

Concerns surrounding data loss may also have been exacerbated by a recent report from MessageLabs, which discovered that 94 per cent of emails in the UK are spam and can contain malicious codes and viruses.

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 for SMEs to ensure they can survive any disaster.