Too Much Product, Too Little Substance

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

  Risk Management  

IT security has been a hot topic in 2007 and 2008. In 2009, move it up a notch to the “scalding” category. A national security and privacy survey sponsored by CA Inc. (formerly Computer Associates) and conducted by The Strategic Counsel showed that security threats from within an organization now are a bigger problem than attacks from external sources. One thing is certain: We can expect a significant increase in break-ins over the next year. How devastating they’ll be and what havoc, damage and pandemonium they’ll create is anyone’s guess.

It’s no secret that the bad guys are getting smarter every year. It would be nice to be able to say that the United States is playing the security game better than anyone else. But that’s not true. We’re not pulling up the rear, but we’re far from leading the pack. One of the big reasons for falling behind is that we’re not turning out enough security professionals to keep up with this mounting problem, much less contain it.

A recent CompTIA survey found that among all IT skills, security has the biggest disparity between demand and supply of proficient workers. IT managers say that the reason skills are coming up short is because the security landscape changes so rapidly that it is very difficult for anyone to stay on top of all the threats. Somehow, that seems like a …

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