By Owen Ferguson

According to a recent poll, 88 per cent of NT system managers believe accidental deletions are a major source of corporate data loss.

Only three per cent of the managers polled by Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcasters Network International considered viruses responsible for major data loss, suggesting that accidental deletions result in 30 times more destruction of important data than viruses. Although there's been little research done into the cost of accidental deletions, Islandia, N.Y.-based Computer Associates International Inc. estimates the cost of virus attacks to corporations at around US$500 million. Findings from the new poll suggest deleted data is costing over US$15 billion each year. These costs may continue to rise as the results of the study indicate a significant increase over previous figures.

Two years ago, for instance, Minneapolis, Minn.-based Ontrack Data International found that human error, including accidental deletions, were responsible for 32 per cent of data loss. Last year, only one year later, a study by Oslo, Norway-based Tandberg Data found that data loss due to human error had risen to 67 per cent.

Phil Proffit, director of research at BNI, says that "even though there is a tremendous amount of media coverage on viruses and the amount of damage that viruses can cause, the truth is that viruses only account for a small percentage of data loss when compared to the real problem of human error."

Gary Sutton, CEO of San Diego-based online backup service @Backup, attests to the fact that people at many companies are accidentally deleting their own files. "We get dozens of calls each day to restore a file due to user deletions," he says.

Avoiding this kind of scenario is paramount for system managers. The poll also found 81 per cent of system managers say protecting company data is one of the most important aspects of their job. Although regular backup of company data would seem to be the obvious answer to the problem, the poll shows that almost 50 per cent of system managers simply don't trust backup systems. Meanwhile, over 63 per cent had experienced cases where they tried to find lost data only to discover that the backup was faulty.

So what can be done to fight accidental data loss? "Currently, there are only three possible solutions to the problem," says Proffit. "The first is increased training, which can be extremely expensive with no real guarantee of the results. The second is restricted access to files which, aside from being a hugely controversial issue can end up impeding production. The third solution is using the correct data loss/recovery technology."