Half of companies lost data in the last year

More than half of European businesses lost data in the last year due to hardware and software failure, a poll has found.

According to IT group EMC's European Disaster Recovery Survey 2011, 54 per cent of firms lost data or experienced business downtime in the last 12 months, reports BBC News.

However, it wasn't international espionage, or computer viruses that took down these machines. IT leaders cited hardware failure (61 per cent), power outages (42 per cent) and data corruption (35 per cent) as the biggest reasons for the loss.

It was also revealed that a massive 74 per cent of firms felt that they would be unable to recover systems in the event of problems such as these.

EMC says that the results show that companies need to ensure they back up data and invest in disaster recovery solutions in the event of an emergency. Businesses may consider consulting IT technical support specialists about the best option for their enterprise.

"The survey highlights the high level of incidents where businesses have overlooked the importance of planning for events, even ordinary ones," commented Neil Fisher, vice chairman of the Information Assurance Advisory Council.

"It really doesn't matter if the events are routine, acts of god or the result of criminal activity," he told PC Pro.

The EMC European Disaster Recovery Survey 2011 quizzed 1,750 IT bosses from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Russia to compile its results.

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