Technology professionals believe new security solutions will have the greatest impact on organizations this year, a study suggests.

Research carried out by CompTIA found that 24.3 per cent of technology professionals thought that new security technologies would be the sector that has the greatest impact on business operations in 2007.

"Information security considerations affect virtually everything an organization does, whether it is internal email communications, business-to-business data exchange or electronic commerce with consumers," explained John Venator, president of CompTIA.

"The proliferation of devices that are now connected to networks, and the increasing mobility of customers and workers have pushed security to top of mind for everyone."

The survey also found that many IT professionals predicted that wireless data applications would become important over the year, as would convergence solutions - like VoIP - and open source solutions.

A recent study found that many SMEs were failing to put in place encryption systems even after they had experienced a serious IT security breech.