“For many SMEs, their digital information is as valuable as actual cash,” says Gavin Smith, CEO of DataFort. “Companies wouldn’t store their money in gym lockers or other storage facilities you get for free, so why put customer lists, sales sheets, invoices, accounts and other business critical data in the Internet equivalent?”

While free one gigabyte web mail accounts may sound tempting, Smith argues that SMEs are playing a risky game if they use what is essentially e-mail storage provision for business critical data backups.

“Recent cases of power users losing all of their files from an Internet e-mail account is proof enough that, when it comes to storing and retrieving critical data, the best option is through a dedicated off-site solution that can prove the security and resilience of its service.”

DataFort’s warning comes on the back of a similar announcement by UK insurance giant AXA Insurance, alerting SMEs to the threat of liquidation unless robust data storage and risk management programmes were in place. It suggested working with a specialist off-site data storage and recovery provider to help safeguard business critical data.

“Free web space cannot be considered robust under any stretch of the imagination,” concludes Smith. “The bottom line is, if you’re backing up data you can’t afford to lose, Internet e-mail accounts come under the same category as CD-ROMs, Zip discs, portable hard drives and tapes…risky.”