Small businesses in IT will increasingly invest in network security, it has been said.

Nick Heath, the senior reporter at silicon.com, responded to claims that security software and services spending will outpace other IT spending areas during 2010.

He said that data breaches always remain a major annoyance for organisations in both the public and private sector.

As a result, the government has responded to this threat via the Information Commissioner's Office by placing a fine on businesses which are compromised, particularly if they are found to have "recklessly breached" the Data Protection Act, thus convincing more small businesses in IT to spend.

"Given that data loss is still a subject that can attract a lot of negative publicity, it makes sense that companies are spending more on security technologies and training."

According to Gartner research this week, security software budgets are expected to grow by approximately four per cent in 2010, in turn growing more than all other areas of infrastructure software.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.