Computers and networking technology have become essential tools in the modern workplace. Information assurance is a rapidly growing subfield of information technology. Due to this field being fairly new, individuals will often need to have some questions answered before they are able to decide if information assurance is a career that would be a good fit for their needs and interests.

What Does Someone Working In Information Assurance Do?

Individuals that work in information assurance are tasked with protecting the integrity of the information that is stored on computers. While this will partially involve preventing hackers and other criminals from compromising the information, it also involves protecting it against routine hardware and software problems. In order to do this, these professionals will use sophisticated diagnostic software that can analyze the integrity of the data. Depending on the scope and type of the data being protected, these individuals may need to develop their own software in order to complete their task. Without the services of these professionals, companies would be at constant risk of losing mass amounts of data to hard drive failures and corrupted files.

What Are The Growth Prospects For Those Working In Information Assurance?

Individuals that work in information assurance can have several career paths open to them. For those that are more interested in the technical aspects of this work, it is possible to concentrate on development and deployment. This will involve creating the tools for protecting the data as well as performing the routine integrity tests. There is usually a managerial path as well that will allow individuals to oversee departments and teams where they will have tremendous freedom in devising and implementing plans to achieve objectives. Due to the highly specialized nature of this field, those wishing to pursue management positions will still need to be extremely knowledgeable in data assurance so that they can make informed decisions when leading their team.

Are Information Assurance Jobs Found Only At Large Companies?

It can be a fairly common assumption for individuals to think that information assurance jobs are only found at large corporations. Yet, these professionals can service businesses of almost any size. In fact, any company that must retain large amounts of data could likely benefit from these services, as the loss of this data could result in increased liability as well as the threat of government penalties. Information assurance professionals that work with smaller companies may find that they are only needed on a part-time basis. As a result, these individuals will often adopt a freelance approach where they work with multiple clients at the same time.