Top Three Skills for Data Security Pros

Posted by Bill McCabe

What you need to succeed in data security? Compliance, Governance and Data Security Experts

If 2016 shapes up anything like the last quarter of 2015, data security in the IOT will continue to be a hot topic for all of us working to protect our work in the Cloud. In mylast article, I discussed several trends that we are monitoring at SoftNet Search’s IOT practice area. This time, I will weigh in on the kinds of people who will fulfill the needs of companies who are staying ahead of data security trends.

IT Headcount Going Up

According to all the people that matter, IT will continue to hire data security and other pros in 2016. For example, Computerworld’s recent survey showed that “37% of the 182 IT professionals who responded to the survey said they plan to increase head count in the upcoming year -- that's a significant jump from last year, when only 24% said they planned to add new staff. Moreover, 24% of those polled this year listed "attracting new talent" as first among their business priorities for the next 12 months.”

So how will they find the data security specialists they need? They will focus on these top three skills:

1) Security (General) – General security projects rated number two in the “most important IT projects that survey respondents have underway.” General security specialists, including data security pros, will command higher salaries, with Robert Half Technology 2016 Salary Guide predicting a 5% to 7% rise this year, hitting a range of 100K to 200K on average.

2) Compliance- Small-to-medium sized businesses are racing to ensure that their compliance policies are up to speed, especially if they’re working in the IOT. Healthcare continues to head up the compliance market in this field, with financial services and consumer privacy goals (customer information safety) coming in a close second and third, respectively. Data security specialists and database analysts will continue to command higher salaries—and a track record of managing big data in the cloud – and providing compliance leadership for functional business partners—is a must.  Computerworld again: “Exactly 50% of the IT professionals who participated in our Forecast 2016 survey said they plan to increase spending on security technologies in the next 12 months.” Making sure these technologies include built-in compliance gate keeping will be top of mind for data security leaders all throughout 2016.

3) Governance- Many large corporations have a lock on their governance policies because they have the headcount to ensure that Cloud and SaaS solutions across the enterprise fold into their existing governance plans. They can also pull together IT governance committees to get ahead of this issue and ensure that data security guardrails are firmly in place via smart governance plans.

Who owns your data security governance policy?

The problem is, many companies have had to institute ad hoc governance because they don’t have the time to control these policies in a centralized way. Functional, siloed IT business partners might “own” the governance policies for say, customer information, with others guarding HR or manufacturing data. Data security pros with backgrounds in IT governance can help answer IT leaders’ most pressing governance questions in an enterprise-wide manner and ensure that governance rules don’t languish in silos, making your company prone to breaches of policy. Hire someone to answer these questions:

• How to start instituting a cohesive governance strategy that grows with the company (and its technologies)?

• Who should we include on our team

• How long it will take until the governance policy works on its own to cover all of our technologies and foreseeable ones?

• Who should manage the project and become accountable from the beginning?

If your data security pros don’t have the answers to these questions or have not worked as a team to define governance for the IOT, chances are they will need to get up to speed—and quickly.

What doesn’t work as well?

We’ve watched some companies hire a consultant to help the Corporate Governance Officers (CGOs) with the IT end of their jobs. The problem with that solution is that IOT and cloud-based data security and governance should not be placed on the table in front of a bunch of lawyers that, no matter how skilled, can’t be expected to keep up with best practices in the field. Hiring internal IT governance headcount, if even on a contract basis, works better in the long run and will cost you thousands less without costing you your peace of mind.

 If you’d like to know more about the highly-skilled data security specialists I’ve seen in my practice; or if your enterprise requires help with IT compliance, governance or data security in general, definitely give me  a shout.

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