IT workers no longer have the resources to ensure their corporate PCs and laptops are fully secure from a major attack, it has been stated.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, highlighted the need for disaster recovery tools such as those provided by online backups, otherwise small businesses in IT may really suffer.

He said that the situation was not so much a lack of awareness of issues, with "typical techies" being well aware of the problem.

However, Mr Cluley noted that many IT teams simply do not have the tools or resources available to them with reduced budgets.

The expert continued: "I think the problem, generally, is that the IT teams are overstretched, overworked, underpaid, and so they don't necessarily have the right resources to control this, but I think many of them are aware that this sort of thing can be a problem."

Last year, Symantec had to create over 1.6 million solutions to malicious codes - more than 60 per cent of the total signatures ever created by the company.

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 online backup.