Fuelled by increasing fears of virus and hack attacks, global network security appliance and software sales continue to climb steadily, rising four per cent to $1bn between the first and second quarters of this year, according to newly published figures.

The latest Network Security Appliances and Software study from Infonetics Research also predicted that security appliance and software sales will grow by 23 per cent to $1.3bn by the second quarter of 2006. Annual sales revenue is projected to grow to $6.4bn by 2008.

"Some vendors are starting to build integrated content security appliances (virus scanning, spam filtering, spyware/malware security, etc.) and are intentionally leaving out VPN and firewall functionality, so these products can act as a supplement to existing embedded VPN/firewall products," said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst at Infonetics Research.

According to the report Cisco leads the network security appliance and software market with 34 per cent of worldwide sales, while Check Point is second with 10 per cent and Juniper Networks third with eight per cent.

Enterasys, ISS, McAfee, Nokia, Nortel, SonicWALL and Symantec are all identified as "strong second-tier players" with between one and six per cent of the total market by sales revenue.

The study found that VPN/firewall appliances and software make up 78 per cent of total revenues, intrusion detection/prevention 14 per cent, and gateway antivirus eight per cent.