It is an ill wind that blows no good! And in the case of UK company SurfControl that ill wind is a virus.

SurfControl today launched healthy results for for the quarter to 31/12/04. Sales reached £13.1m ($24.7m) up 17% from the previous year. For the half year, revenues increased to £25m ($47.1m).

Profits before tax though fell 29% due to one-off charges for the acquisition of Chinese security firm, SecureM.

The current financial year should be good for SurfControl. They are expecting revenues of between £51m and £54m.

SurfControls reasoning for the good figures was, "increasingly malicious and criminal internet threats" and regulatory requirements were driving demand for its net and email filtering products.

New customers for the quarter include, United Broadcasting Corporation Thailand, China Southern Airlines, Daimler Chrysler and the British Olympic Association

RiskFilter, a new email security appliance brought in new sales.

Phishing, pharming, plain old viruses and all the other security threats are driving the filtering market.

IDC estimates the secure content market will be worth $7.5bn by 2008.

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