What Is an Information Security Consultant and Why Do You Need One?

You can think of an IT security consultant as an independent business advisor specializing in bringing about highly technical and scarce expertise in different organizational issues. In contemporary times, there are different niches of cyber security consultants with expertise as follows.

First, you have the penetration testers attempting to find the potential weaknesses in the organization’s network and provide recommendations on resolving the issues.

Then you have the information security auditor have the skillsets to judge the degree of an organization’s compliance with ISO standards.

Next, there are business continuity professionals who can assess the organization’s resilience in the event of a major disruption and they will recommend ways in improving the organizations' ability to survive the major incident. It is inclusive of the disaster recovery measures of the organization’s IT facility.

Another domain of expertise is the information security consulting services that advise on the configuration of the firewalls, the topology of the network, anti-malware software, access control, password policies, access right allocation, and controls to technical security.

Lastly, we have the information assurance specialist who will be giving advice on the organization’s information security management system, which includes the procedures, guidelines, InfoSec policy, training and security awareness, and scrutinizing a contract’s relevant section.

It becomes clear that the information security consultant will possess a wide range of skills and experience.  The professional must have the confidence to interact with stakeholders at different levels right from the board members to the IT system administrators. It is possible that security professionals will have a background in computer science but have usually branched into a broader experience field.

The information security consultant will know how to utilize the broader array of skillsets productively. She or he will comprehend the need to uncover and bring into light hidden security issues, which may assume humungous proportions in the near future.