In the field of information technology, an information security analyst is a vital member of the team. People in this position assist organizations in implementing data security measures that are sensitive and mission-critical. The analyst will assist in the development, implementation, and enforcement of policies to protect an organization’s data from unauthorized access or use.
Excellent technical skills are required for the information security analyst to detect and respond to data security threats. These attacks could come from within or outside the company. Other threats to the organization’s data, such as threats caused by severe weather, maintaining power to servers in the event of a local outage, and planning for continuing operations at alternate sites in the event that the main operations site needs to be shut down, may be included in the analyst’s planning.
A person in this position’s responsibilities typically include developing plans to prevent malicious or inadvertent data use, developing plans for emergency use, training users on security measures, and monitoring data access. In addition to these responsibilities, the information analyst may be tasked with reviewing virus information and ensuring virus protection is in place. They may be asked to assess the risks of data exposure and confirm that security systems are in place and functioning properly. To ensure that the application complies with the organization’s information security standards, the analyst may serve as an expert on application development project teams.
An expert knowledge of the systems technology used by the hiring organization may be required in an information security analyst job description. A certain number of years of experience may be required by some organizations. A four-year degree in a technical field, network and system administration experience, and programming experience may also be desirable to an organization.
Other skills are beneficial to information security analysts. It’s beneficial to learn how to communicate with people who have varying levels of technical expertise. When communicating security concerns to non-technical personnel, the analyst must be able to translate technical concepts into layman’s terms. A thorough understanding of the organization’s operations will aid the analyst’s performance, as it will be useful to know which information is most critical to the organization’s mission and thus more likely to require protection.
Those interested in working as an information security analyst must be willing to keep up with technological advancements that affect the field. In the same way, the analyst will need to keep up with trends in attacks such as viruses and hacker attacks. Furthermore, information security legal requirements are subject to change, so the analyst must keep up with them.