technological forces. Often small businesses by their very nature do not have the resources to manage their own data backup requirements. Instead they often rely on makeshift solutions (someone does a backup and takes it home at regular (or irregular!!) intervals) or external suppliers for their IT support. In the case of external suppliers the small business is typically left with the responsibility for managing the backups. Although the use of external suppliers is an excellent solution to Small Business resource shortages, there is often no real control of the backup process. This is the main point of failure with this model - users who are tasked with looking after backups may not know how to get help when they need it or fail to appreciate the importance of the task. Tapes fail to get swapped or backups fail without anyone noticing.

External attacks on your business data are less common than internal ones, yet they are more likely to grab the attention of the news media. Hacking, virus attacks, spam emails and denial of service are the common types of attacks most businesses need to deal with at some point. With the improvement in firewall technology and monitoring hackers have discovered that the weakest link in your defences is your users. The call claiming to be your bank asking for account details or the email asking you to disclose your password are the newer forms of this attack which render all the physical security you have in place useless.