"The Group's first priority is to drive strong growth and F-Secure's winning strategy has been working with its ISP partners," she said.

"Moving forward we are still seeing our growth being driven by a combination of security services and value added services. We do not foresee any situations that warrant us to have any effect on F-Secure's local headcount in the future. On the contrary, we are looking forward to growing the market in the ANZ region."

Symantec was more coy about its staffing numbers.

A company spokesperson said: "We can't discuss the amount of staff we have hired in this region but can tell you that Symantec is committed to meeting the needs of its customers and continues to grow and hire where necessary."