The Top Information Security Issues Facing Organizations: What Can Government Do to Help?

Abstract Considering that many organizations today are fully dependent on information technology for survival,1 information security is one of the most important concerns facing the modern organization. The increasing variety of threats and ferociousness of attacks has made protecting information a complex challenge.2 Improved knowledge of the critical issues underlying information security can help practitioners, researchers, and government employees alike to understand and solve the biggest problems. To this end, the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium [(ISC)2]® teamed up with Auburn University researchers to identify and rank the top information security issues in two sequential, but related surveys. The first survey involved a worldwide sample of 874 certified information system security professionals (CISSPs)®, who ranked a list of 25 information security issues based on which ones were the most critical facing organizations today. In a follow-on survey, 623 U.S.-based CISSPs then re-ranked the same 25 issues based on which ones they felt the U.S. federal government could help the most in solving.