Gerry O’Neill, a senior contributor to the Infosecurity Adviser – the online community for the information security industry, created by the organisers of Infosecurity Europe – notes that never before have there been so many vacancies in the CISO community.
Gerry O’Neill, says that it is now clear that the current economic downturn is having an effect on the employment of IT security professionals, with several redundancies already noted. There is an opportunity and companies should take advantage of the wealth of IT security talent currently available in the IT security managerial sector.
“What we are seeing is record number of vacancies in the IT security sector, most notably on the CISO – Chief Information Security Officer – side of things. We’re therefore encouraging organisations to widen their search and consider employing from the wider pool of equally competent and available accredited security professionals with proven abilty.” said Gerry O’Neill, CEO of IISP.
According to O’Neill, the fact that a large number of CISOs roles now on the job market are being offered to a limited group could be seen as a short-sighted tactic, when they are missing the opportunity to cast the net more widely.
“Not only does this recruitment strategy deprive companies of their best options for senior IT security professionals, but it will create a shortage of CISOs in the market in the longer term. This is a lose – lose situation that can easily be avoided,” he added.
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It is also evident that there have also been some redundancies, which is a short sighted move by employers. The fact is that in a downturn criminals will be seeking out fraud and espionage opportunities, sometimes with the help of disgruntled employees who are about to lose their jobs. This is not the time to remove the staff who survey the security and governance landscape acting as an organisations key defence. Now is the time when all organisations should be strengthening their safety net, particularly when all the predictions are that cyber criminal activity will increase dramatically in 2009” he said.
