The security market is remaining resilient in the face of the global economic downturn, the latest figures from Gartner have indicated.

The security software market boomed 19.8 per cent in 2007 to reach $8.7bn (£4.4bn), with email security and security information and event management (SIEM) leading the way, according to the market watcher.

Gartner listed data leakage and the need to tackle fast evolving threats as among the drivers of the market’s strong growth.

Market gorilla Symantec remained king of the jungle as it grew revenues 8 per cent to $2.77bn. The security giant bit out 26.6 per cent of the market, while McAfee and Trend Micro remained in second and third positions with an 11.8 per cent and 7.8 per cent share of the spoils, respectively.

EMC enjoyed the strongest quarter of the top six with revenues increasing from $121.8m to $414m on an annual comparison.

“In 2007, the security market did not experience any noticeable signs of a slowdown as it showed a double digit growth,” said Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner.

“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.”

Email security and SIEM were the market’s two hotspots, growing 45.4 and 32.1 per cent, respectively.

“Compliance is the primary driver for the adoption of SIEM tools, at the same time they are also adopted to tackle the increasing threats from targeted attacks and fraud. In addition, the liability that spam and malware have on corporate systems is among the key issues driving spending on e-mail security boundary tools,” said Contu.