UK firms still 'unprepared' for IT disasters

Some of the UK's leading companies are inadequately protected from IT disasters, according to a survey of FTSE100 firms.

Research by Compass Management Consulting of 55 companies in the FTSE100 found that while 98 per cent have a business continuity plan (BCP) in place, 58 per cent have still suffered an "IT disaster" in the last five years.

The most common suffered by respondents included hardware failure (22 per cent), utilities failure (18 per cent) followed by deliberate or malicious damage (14 per cent).

It is the latter cause that companies are increasingly unprepared for, according to Debbie Rosario, senior consultant at Compass Management Consulting, who said over a third of firms did not include this at all in their continuity planning.

"There's not the degree of correlation between the types of disaster and the BCP. The focus appears to be on the technology but technology is getting more reliable."

She said that while almost all organisations now have business continuity in plans in place there seems to be wide variations in their effectiveness. Only 38 per cent suffering an IT disaster actually invoked the measure to solve the problem, while of those who did 71 per cent still reported that their business was impacted.

Rosaria said: "It doesn't necessarily mean those business continuity plans are good or extensive."

And while terrorism remains way down the list of actual incidents and priorities for IT departments, Rosario warned that firms are still leaving themselves exposed, with almost half not including security breaches in their continuity plans.