Information security and IT security are often used interchangeably – even among experienced security professionals. While the two terms are related and share the common goal of protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of information, there are significant differences between them that are crucial for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) to understand. Misconstruing information security as merely IT security can lead to blind spots in a security program.
IT Security: Protecting Technology Systems
IT security (often called technical or cybersecurity) focuses on safeguarding an organization’s IT infrastructure and digital information systems. In simple terms, IT security is concerned only with the systems and hardware that store, process, transmit, and manage electronic data. It encompasses the defensive measures put in place to prevent unauthorized access, misuse, or harm to digital assets.
Key aspects of IT security typically include:
- Network and System Security: Protecting servers, networks, databases, and devices using firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and secure configurations.
- Application and Data Security: Ensuring software and databases are secure through measures like access controls, encryption, patch management, and anti-malware protection.
- Identity and Access Management: Authenticating users and restricting system access to only authorized personnel.
- Monitoring and Incident Response: Detecting intrusions or anomalies and responding to cyber incidents to minimize damage.
In essence, IT security is a subset of the broader security picture, focused on technical controls and cyber defenses within the IT environment. It aims to keep the organization’s technology backbone – its computers, networks, and digital data – secure from hackers, viruses, and other cyber threats. This is often an operational objective handled by IT departments or dedicated cybersecurity teams.
Information Security: A Broader Scope
Information security (InfoSec), by contrast, goes far beyond just IT systems. It is an expansive discipline concerned with protecting all forms of information – digital or otherwise – across the entire organization. The information itself is the asset of concern, independent of the technology that might hold it. This means information security encompasses not only electronic data, but also paper documents, verbal knowledge, and any other medium of information. It involves policies, processes, and safeguards that ensure information remains confidential, accurate, and available to the right people.
Key elements of information security include areas such as:
- Data Classification and Handling: Defining levels of sensitivity for information (e.g. public, internal, confidential) and establishing rules for how each category should be protected and handled.
- Policies and Procedures: Developing organizational security policies, standards, and procedures (for example, an information retention and disposal policy) to govern secure behavior and compliance.
- Physical Security Measures: Protecting the physical storage and access to information – locking file cabinets, securing server rooms, using shredders for sensitive printouts, and controlling facility access are all information security measures.
- Personnel Security and Training: Screening and background checks on personnel, plus ongoing security awareness training to guard against insider threats and social engineering (HUMINT) attacks.
- Employees need to know how to handle information securely and recognize attempts to trick them into revealing confidential data.
- Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Implementing controls to meet legal requirements (contracts, NDAs) and industry regulations that govern information protection (such as privacy laws or sector-specific security requirements).
- Information in Any Form: Critically, InfoSec addresses data regardless of format – whether it’s stored in a database, printed on paper, or simply the know-how in an employee’s mind. For example, protecting intellectual property might involve both cybersecurity controls and measures like non-disclosure agreements or securing discussions in private areas.
In short, information security is holistic and interdisciplinary. It blends technical controls with physical safeguards and administrative measures. A classic example is that even the most secure computer system (an IT security concern) can be undermined if a file is printed and left on a desk or if an employee divulges a password to a fraudster – those latter scenarios are squarely in the realm of information security. IT security is perhaps only about half of the information security puzzle, because InfoSec also encompasses areas like physical security, human resources practices, legal protections, organizational processes, etc. The purpose of information security is to build a comprehensive risk management system addressing all risks to information, not just IT-related risks.
Shared Goal, Different Scope
It’s important to recognize the relationship between these two domains: every IT security measure contributes to protecting information (and thus is part of information security), but not every information security concern falls under IT security. In other words, IT security can be thought of as a subset of information security. Both serve the overarching mission of safeguarding data, yet information security casts a much wider net.
To make this more concrete, consider an example from daily business operations: a telecommunications store photocopies a customer’s credit card as part of ID verification for a new account. Once that paper copy is made and perhaps faxed to a processing center, what happens to the physical paper? Shredding or securely storing that document is not a technical (IT) security issue at all – it’s an information security concern about protecting sensitive data in physical form. Indeed, if that paper isn’t handled properly, it could lead to a breach of the customer’s information just as surely as a hack into a database could. The IT security team might ensure the fax transmission is encrypted and the digital systems are secure, but ensuring the paper copy is locked up or destroyed is part of information security’s broader scope.
Another way to differentiate the two: IT security tends to be an operational function (e.g. running antivirus scans, configuring firewalls, applying software patches), whereas information security is more of a strategic, risk management function that incorporates those IT operations alongside governance, training, and business processes. Both are essential, but conflating them can cause organizations to overlook critical non-technical protections.
Organizational Structure and Leadership Considerations
The difference between information security and IT security also has implications for how security functions are structured within an organization. Many companies historically positioned the information security team under the IT department (for example, having the CISO report to the CIO). However, given the broader mandate of information security, this organizational alignment can be limiting. If the security function is buried inside IT, there’s a risk that security will be viewed narrowly as a technical issue, subordinate to IT priorities. In contrast, when the information security function is elevated – for instance, when the CISO reports to a Chief Risk Officer (CRO), Chief Security Officer (CSO), or even directly to the CEO or board – security is recognized as an enterprise-wide risk management concern rather than just an IT matter.
In practical terms, placing InfoSec outside the direct IT hierarchy best empowers it to enforce policies across departments and balance technical needs with business priorities. It ensures that security gets a voice at the leadership table and that trade-offs between convenience and security are evaluated at the right level. When the CISO has an independent reporting line (e.g. under a risk or governance function), it solidly embeds cybersecurity and information protection into the overall risk management of the enterprise, rather than relegating it to a subset of IT concerns.
For a CISO audience, this alignment is more than an org chart detail – it’s about having the authority and visibility to address non-technical vulnerabilities (like process gaps or human factors) with the same vigor as technical ones. If information security is treated as just an IT issue, important controls such as employee vetting, cross-department data handling procedures, or physical document security might not get the attention and resources they require. By positioning information security as its own function (or as part of an enterprise risk or security group), organizations signal that protecting information is a fundamental business objective, not just an IT task.
Conclusion
To sum up, while IT security and information security both aim to safeguard valuable data, they operate on different scales. IT security is an operational objective, focused on defending the technological infrastructure and digital information within it. Information security is a broader risk management exercise, concerned with all information assets across the organization – digital, physical, and human – and is most effective as a function of corporate governance.
For CISOs and other leaders, understanding this distinction is more than semantics: it’s about ensuring that security strategies address the full spectrum of risks. By recognizing that information security is not just IT’s responsibility, but a shared business responsibility, organizations can foster a security culture that protects information on all fronts. In practice, this means championing enterprise-wide security policies, involving multiple departments in security decisions, and structuring the security program so that it can independently assess and mitigate risks. Remember, a breach can originate from a misplaced file or an untrained employee just as easily as from a network firewall gap. A CISO’s mandate, therefore, is to build an information security program that is comprehensive and integrated with the business – one that includes robust IT security measures and the myriad other controls needed to keep information safe wherever it resides.
Marin Ivezic
For over 30 years, Marin Ivezic has been protecting critical infrastructure and financial services against cyber, financial crime and regulatory risks posed by complex and emerging technologies.
He held multiple interim CISO and technology leadership roles in Global 2000 companies.
