Security Careers Offer Opportunities, Challenges

It's a good time to be an IT security professional. Threats are rampant and come from a variety of sources, making security skill sets a sought-after commodity, and pushing IT security compensation upward. Of course, as Uncle Ben told Spider-Man, "With great power comes great responsibility," and in the world of IT security, that means you need the right certifications and affiliations. Such are the findings of the sixth annual "2013 Global Information Security Workforce Study" from nonprofit (ISC)², administrators of the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification standard. That's not to say that the study of 12,000 information security professionals, conducted by Frost & Sullivan for (ISC)² and partner Booz Allen Hamilton, didn't strike some ominous notes. Respondents indicated that they're fighting an uphill battle against a long list of threats, topped by concerns such as application vulnerabilities, malware and mobile devices, and that they're doing so while dealing with a shortage of qualified IT security professionals.