A survey carried out in the run up to the Infosecurity event in London has found that many firms' disaster recovery plans are lacking. Worse than that, roughly a quarter of the firms polled had no plans at all.

In the survey, the full results of which will be launched at the show later this month, ninety two per cent of respondents admitted that disaster recovery was critical to their business, however, 58 per cent said that should their systems fail for just one day then they would "suffer significant business disruption". For large companies this number rises to 70 per cent.

Although the research found that most firms appear to be better protected than ever, 99 per cent of firms back up critical systems and data, almost half have not tested them in the past year.

Chris Potter, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, who conducted the survey, said, "The number of companies with a disaster recovery plan has gone up. However, experience shows that plans are only effective if regularly tested. It is a concern that only half of plans have been tested in the last year.”