An information security analyst helps organizations protect sensitive data by developing, implementing, and enforcing policies. They must have excellent technical skills and be able to communicate with non-technical staff. Specialized knowledge and experience may be required, and staying up-to-date with technology and regulatory requirements is essential.
An information security analyst is an important member of the staff of an Information Technology department. People in this position help organizations take steps to protect sensitive and mission-critical data. The analyst will help develop, implement, and enforce policies to protect an organization’s data from inappropriate access or use.
Excellent technical skills are essential for the information security analyst to be able to discern and take action to prevent data security attacks. These attacks can come from inside or outside the organization. The analyst can be included in planning for other threats to the organization’s data, such as weather threats, maintaining power to servers in the event of a site outage, and planning for ongoing operations at alternate locations if the primary site of operations needs to be shut down. .
Some common duties of a person in this position are creating plans to prevent malicious or inadvertent use of data, creating plans for emergency use, training users on security measures, and monitoring access to data. Along with these roles, the information analyst may also be tasked with reviewing virus information and ensuring virus protection. They may be required to assess data exposure risks as well as validate that security systems are in place and functioning as designed. The analyst can act as an expert on application development project teams to ensure the application meets the organization’s information security standards.
An information security analyst job description may include the need for specialized knowledge in the systems technology used by the hiring organization. Some organizations may require a certain number of years of experience. Additional requirements an organization may find desirable are a four-year degree in a technical field, network and systems administration experience, and programming experience.
There are other useful skills for information security analysts. Developing an ability to communicate with audiences with different technical skills is valuable. When communicating security concerns to non-technical staff, the analyst must be able to make technical concepts understandable to the general public. A good understanding of the organization’s business will help the analyst perform more effectively, as it is helpful to understand what information is most critical to the organization’s mission and most likely to need protection.
Those who are interested in an information security analyst position must be willing to keep up with technology developments that affect the information security field. Likewise, the analyst will need to track trends in attacks such as viruses and hacker attacks. In addition, legal requirements for information security can change, so the analyst must also stay abreast of regulatory requirements.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
