UK firms ignoring disaster recovery

One in three mid-sized companies in the UK does not have a disaster recovery plan in place for their website, according to recent research commissioned by managed hosting services provider NetBenefit.

With nearly three quarters of mid-sized UK companies now doing business online, the researchers argued that this represents a serious threat to online business continuity.

NetBenefit discovered that 67 per cent of companies have plans in place to guard against threats such as viruses, DoS attacks or unpredicted spikes in traffic, but only 38 per cent test their plans more than once a year.

The research also revealed that many mid-sized companies are underestimating the effect of downtime. Some 64 per cent of respondents anticipate 'no damage' or only 'slight damage' to their business if their website went down for a whole day.

The study was conducted by independent research company Vanson Bourne among 100 UK IT directors representing companies with 250 or more employees.

NetBenefit said that the results highlight the risks companies are taking by failing to ensure a continuous service in the event of website failure.

Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer at NetBenefit, said: "We know that the number of mid-market companies using the internet as a business channel continues to grow, but we have been very surprised by the lack of disaster recovery planning.
"Nearly every day we hear about viruses, hacking and other web attacks, let alone natural disasters such as fires or floods.

"While many companies go to great lengths to protect their physical assets with burglar alarms and other security devices, they do little or nothing to protect their vital online business."