For the security research - which was commissioned by Bell Micro - the IT distributor, took in 97 interviews with IT professionals and found that just 62% of UK organisations were able to monitor when users copied or moved data from their firm's IT resource onto portable devices or removable, mobile media.
35% of interviewees also said that their firms were totally unable to track how data was being saved to a mobile device.
Interestingly, security researchers found that, whilst 94% of organisations have some sort of solution in place to ensure lost or stolen portable devices do not present any risk to the company if they were to fall into the wrong hands, 92% of respondents admitted that they do not have solutions in place which are 100% effective.
In fact almost a fifth of interviewees described their current security solutions as poor, Bell Micro said.
Ed Callacher, the distributor's divisional director, said that, despite the media scare stories and industry calls to action, a high proportion of businesses still appear to be blase about the security threat from mobile devices.
"As the edge of the network extends outwards and becomes more diverse, the demand of perimeter security has distracted IT professionals from the critical issue of monitoring and managing what is occurring within the network itself", he said.
According to Callacher, despite the increasing reliance on mobile technology, the levels of current business monitoring of mobile data - whether on PDAs, notebooks, smartphones, CDs/DVDs, or memory sticks - is remarkably poor.
In fact, he said, 80% of UK companies do not have all areas covered in this respect.
"Increasing sales of netbooks, laptops and other mobile business devices are redefining strategies within companies that need to embrace this new class of super portable device", he explained.