Many businesses are putting their income and very existence at risk by not testing their disaster recovery plans, according to a new survey.

According to Symantec, many businesses do not like to test their systems as doing so can result in long-term downtime, resulting in a loss in performance and productivity.

However, many companies may never know until too late that their network is not well protected, potentially losing major documents should issues strike the building.

Rob Soderbery, the senior vice-president of Symantec's storage and availability management group, explained that while we are facing a tough economic climate, these things cannot be overlooked.

He continued: "If organisations are not protecting virtual environments, not testing their disaster recovery plans and seeing one out of every four tests fail, then something needs to change to better manage risk to the business.

"Organisations should implement solutions that address these needs while allowing them to leverage existing assets."

Earlier this month, Forrester Research explained that small businesses in IT are seeing outsourced software as a much safer option.

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.