* The latest Global Information Security Workforce Study from (ISC)2
The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC)2 has provided a valuable service every year since 2004 with its _Global Information Security Workforce Study_. The documents are available free from the organization with a simple registration.
The 2006 study describes the demographics of the survey on page 6:
“This year’s study reached a broad cross-section of information security professionals in more than 100 countries. Respondents came from the three major regions of the world: Americas (57.3%), EMEA [Europe, Middle-East and Africa] (22.8%), and Asia/Pacific (including Japan) (19.5%).”
A total of 4,016 respondents participated in the study.
The respondents included security specialists with a wide range of job titles and occupations in organizations ranging from small (about 5% had fewer than 10 employees) to large (16% had more than 100,000). Company revenue ranges included about 14% with less than $10 million up to those with $50 billion and up (about 8%). Industries represented included IT (20%), government (17%), financial services (16%) and many other sectors.
Table 2, “Top 5 Security Technologies Being Deployed by Region” (p. 12) showed interesting differences in the rank orders across regions. Respondents in the Americas listed biometrics first, followed by intrusion detection, wireless security solutions, identity and access management and security event or information management.
In contrast, both EMEA and Asia/Pacific ranked the top three as wireless, biometrics and forensics; #4 was intrusion prevention in EMEA and storage security in Asia/Pacific; #5 was risk management solutions in EMEA and business continuity and disaster recovery solutions in Asia/Pacific.
Figure 6 showed that, overall, about 45% of the respondents expected to increase funding in the coming year for personnel and 38% expected increases in training budgets (sample size for these questions was about 800).
In the Americas, more than 50% of the respondents reported salaries of $90,000 or higher; that number included the roughly 37% who reported salaries of $100,000 or higher. The second figure was up from about 32% in 2004 but similar to the proportion in 2006.
There are many other valuable insights into the security profession in the reports. Much of the information could be used to bolster reports to management, to provide tidbits for the security column in corporate newsletters, and to plan budgets. I urge readers to download and read them carefully.
