Small businesses were also less likely to test their backup systems on a regular basis, or to have implemented a policy for the preservation of data. While 61 per cent of overall respondents reported that their company had a formalised data retention policy, this figure fell to just 45 per cent for companies with 50 or fewer employees.

The survey notes that geography may influence data protection practices, with Singaporean companies appearing to manage their data most effectively. Both Hong Kong and Australian respondents were more likely to report having more than five instances of data loss in the last five years.

"The survey exposes a worrying approach to the storage, retention, backup and disposal of organisations' valuable data," said Adrian Briscoe, general manager, Data Recovery Asia Pacific, Kroll Ontrack. "Data loss and associated challenges can have a devastating effect on business productivity, yet the survey shows that many organisations are ill-equipped to deal with the problem and do not fully understand the importance of implementing simple procedures for protecting their data."

The need to adapt backup procedures to match changes in the IT environment was highlighted as a potential problem area for both large and small organisations, with only 52 per cent of companies having reviewed their disaster recovery plans in the last 12 months.

Virtualisation changes data recovery practice