An estimated 90,000 Irish SMEs have had data stolen in the past 12 months, while more than 40pc of Ireland’s small and medium businesses permanently lost data in the same period, according to a new survey.

The survey also suggested that Irish business owners are concerned with cybersecurity, as 86pc think they could become a target of cybercrime, while 37pc of Irish SMEs experienced a cyberattack in the last year.

Despite this, 23pc admitted in the survey that they are not prepared to defend themselves from a cyberattack.

The survey of 150 SME business owners in Ireland was carried out last month by Censuswide, in association with Datapac and cybersecurity and backup specialist Datto. The results were released today (31 March) to coincide with World Backup Day, designed to raise awareness about backups and data preservation.

“Our survey has highlighted the unprecedented scale of cybercrime for small and medium-sized businesses in Ireland today,” Datapac general manager Karen O’Connor said. “The vast majority of business owners are concerned about being a cybercrime target, yet many still don’t seem to be taking the necessary steps to improve their protection.

“While threat detection and prevention are important parts of the cybersecurity puzzle, they don’t solve it alone. Data backup is a vital component and one that shouldn’t be overlooked,” OConner added.

More than a quarter of Irish business owners said they would go out of business if they suffered a permanent loss of critical data. 38pc said it would impede their business growth, while 29pc said it would result in the loss of customers. 56pc of businesses said they rely on the cloud for some or all of their data storage needs.

However, only 5pc of Irish SMEs said they back up their data in real-time, while 72pc reported that their data backup frequency is once per week or less.

“In the likely event of a cyberattack, a robust backup and business continuity solution is the last line of defence and enables most businesses to recover quickly from business-critical data loss,” O’Connor said. “Put simply, data cannot be recovered if it isn’t backed up effectively to begin with.”

There have been several high-profile cyberattacks in the past year highlighting the need for improved cyber defences. These include the HSE ransomware attack in Ireland, the attack on the world’s largest meat producer, the cyberattack on a major US gas pipeline and, most recently, the wave of cyberattacks hitting Ukraine.

Earlier this month, a Lero research team said mandatory cybercrime reporting “in all jurisdictions” would improve the amount of data available to researchers to help combat the growing $1trn global cybercrime industry.

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