Revenues made by security software providers across the globe rose by 20 per cent during 2007, a new report has shown.

Analyst firm Gartner published a study which shows that across the world, sales of security software reached $10.4 billion (£5.2 billion) last year, up from the $8.7 billion raised through sales in 2006.

Ruggero Contu, the principal research analyst at Gartner, remarked that there was little sign of a slowdown as the industry achieved double-digit growth.

"Compliance, data leakage and privacy issues, along with the need to tackle the fast evolving and sophisticated threat environment, are among the major drivers fuelling the growth of spending on security," he added.

Research also published this week by the organisation found the global market for storage management software also grew during 2007, increasing by 12.2 per cent compared to 2006 revenue levels.

It explained that revenues increased to $2.6 billion, from $2.3 billion.