Well over two-thirds (70 per cent) of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) name their top security concerns as being spam and data breaches.

This is according to Effective Vendor Strategies for Targeting SMBs: Vendor Positioning and the Future Outlook for the SMB IT Market, a report published by Business Insights.

In the study, it was suggested that SMBs may be in need of data backup or disaster recovery as they are vulnerable to attacks from hackers and viruses created by other malicious computer users.

The biggest security worry for small businesses in IT continues to be the ever-feared virus, it continued.

However, nearly three-fifths of such companies admitted to not installing software to protect such things as laptops and servers, again highlighting the need for data backup.

Recently, security issues were addressed by Dr Larry Ponemon of the Ponemon Institute, who asserted that security and privacy executives are not communicating well enough with chief executive officers when discussing their business protection priorities.

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.