IT contractors and freelancers may need to help businesses to raise a basic awareness of security issues, according to a recent news report.

Speaking to SearchSecurity.com, Robert Cheyne of SafeLight Security Advisors said end users are not often engaged by enterprises to take an interest in safeguarding company data.

"Often employees think someone at a higher level is taking care of their data security when in fact the employees are really a major part of the security processes," he told the website.

This particular problem came up recently at a healthcare company in Boston, Massachusetts, where at least one employee has emailed bank details to a mortgage broker, mistakenly assuming the connection to be secure.

Meanwhile, security expert Winn Schwartau said the industry needs to provide solutions that have implicit security models built into them, in order to remove the onus from individuals and take data safety behind the scenes.

Last month, the Information Commissioner's Office handed out the first two monetary penalties for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act.