IT support leaders need to ensure mobile devices used by employees are suitably protected against IT threats, it has been claimed.

The risk of confidential information being exposed by an IT security or computer network breach has increased along with the growing use of mobile devices such as laptops, CRM magazine senior editor Marshall Lager warned.

He explained that mobile risks are similar to those associated with using non-secure email.

However, he added there is the danger of "directly exposing business systems, information, and private customer data to unauthorised parties".

Mr Lager added: "The most important security practices still rest with individuals not exposing their logins and passwords via social engineering."

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) recently issued formal undertakings with four NHS trusts following serious breaches of the Data Protection Act, in some cases due to staff negligence with confidential information.

It also prompted the ICO to issue a warning to other NHS trusts over the importance of data security in terms of both hard and mobile computer data.

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.