Information Security between Standards, Certifications and Technologies: An Empirical Study

This paper investigates the relative role of security standards, professional security certifications and technological tools in the protection of organizational data. Findings from the content analysis of 100 job postings for information security analysts and managers show that in general, organizations give more importance to knowledge validated by relevant professional certifications and to the working knowledge of IT products and solutions for the management of their information security than to the knowledge of a particular security standard. Details for such findings and their implications for research and practice are discussed.