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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Information Security Manager

💰 $120,000 - $170,000

Information SecurityCybersecurityManagement

🎯 Role Definition

The Information Security Manager leads the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of the organization's security program to protect information assets, ensure regulatory compliance, and enable secure business growth. This role combines strategic risk management, hands-on security operations oversight, program governance, and stakeholder engagement across engineering, IT, legal, audit, and business teams. The ideal candidate balances technical depth (cloud and on-prem security, SIEM, IAM, vulnerability management) with strong program management, communication, and leadership skills.

Key SEO keywords: Information Security Manager, cybersecurity program, risk assessment, incident response, vulnerability management, security architecture, compliance (ISO 27001, NIST, PCI-DSS, GDPR), cloud security (AWS/Azure/GCP), CISSP, CISM.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Security Engineer / Security Architect
  • Information Security Analyst / SOC Lead
  • IT Risk & Compliance Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Director of Information Security / Head of Security
  • Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
  • VP, Global Security & Risk

Lateral Moves:

  • Security Program Manager
  • IT Risk Manager
  • Cloud Security Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead and manage the enterprise information security program: develop strategy, define security policies, set measurable KPIs, and report program status and risk posture to senior leadership and the board.
  • Design and implement a risk-based vulnerability management program: coordinate scanning, triage, remediation tracking, and metrics to reduce exposure across on-premise, hybrid, and cloud environments.
  • Own incident response capability: maintain IR plan/playbooks, lead incident investigations, coordinate containment/remediation, perform post-incident root cause analysis, and report lessons learned and remediation status to stakeholders.
  • Develop and maintain security architecture standards and secure design patterns for cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP), containerization (Kubernetes/Docker), and on-prem systems to ensure secure product and platform builds.
  • Oversee identity and access management (IAM) governance: enforce least privilege, role-based access controls, privileged access management (PAM), and integration with SSO/IAM providers (Okta, Azure AD).
  • Manage security monitoring and detection: operate and tune SIEM, EDR, and threat intelligence feeds (e.g., Splunk, QRadar, Elastic, CrowdStrike) to identify threats, reduce false positives, and improve mean time to detect.
  • Run third-party and supply chain risk management: perform vendor security assessments, review contracts for security clauses, and track remediation and SOC / penetration test deliverables for critical suppliers.
  • Lead regulatory and compliance programs: manage controls and attestations for ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI-DSS, GDPR, HIPAA as applicable; drive internal and external audits to achieve and maintain certifications.
  • Establish and measure security metrics and reporting: produce executive dashboards, risk heat maps, trending analysis, and board-ready security posture summaries that inform business decisions.
  • Coordinate penetration testing and red-team exercises: scope engagements, manage vendors or internal teams, review findings, and drive prioritized remediation and risk acceptance processes.
  • Implement and mature secure software development lifecycle (SSDLC): partner with engineering to integrate static/dynamic analysis tools (SAST/DAST), promote threat modeling, and ensure security gates in CI/CD pipelines.
  • Build and lead a high-performing security team: recruit, mentor, set individual objectives, and create career development plans for security engineers, analysts, and compliance specialists.
  • Create and deliver security awareness and training programs: run phishing simulations, role-based training, and executive briefings to build a security-conscious culture across the company.
  • Maintain a business-aligned risk register: evaluate new projects, mergers & acquisitions, and product initiatives for security impacts; recommend controls or risk-acceptance strategies.
  • Manage incident communication and escalation: coordinate internal and external communications—including legal, PR, and customer notifications—during security events to minimize business impact.
  • Drive security automation and tooling improvements: implement orchestration, automation (SOAR), policy-as-code, and infrastructure-as-code security checks to improve operational efficiency and consistency.
  • Oversee encryption and data protection strategies: define data classification, encryption-at-rest/in-transit standards, key management practices, and tokenization where appropriate.
  • Work with network and infrastructure teams to design and enforce secure network segmentation, firewall, IDS/IPS, and perimeter hardening strategies to reduce lateral movement.
  • Maintain and enforce secure configuration baselines and patch management processes across servers, endpoints, containers, and cloud services to reduce exploitable vulnerabilities.
  • Participate in business continuity and disaster recovery planning: ensure security controls and incident procedures are aligned with resilience and crisis management plans.
  • Align security investments to business risk priorities: create business cases for security projects, quantify ROI and residual risk, and secure budget approvals.
  • Lead forensic investigations and evidence preservation: coordinate with legal and law enforcement when required, ensuring chain-of-custody and compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
  • Monitor threat landscape and emerging risks: evaluate new attack techniques, vulnerabilities, and regulatory changes, and adapt the security strategy and tooling accordingly.
  • Facilitate cross-functional governance committees: chair security steering groups, change advisory boards, and risk review meetings to ensure transparent decision-making and accountability.

Secondary Functions

  • Provide security subject matter expertise to product, engineering, and IT teams during design reviews, major releases, and platform migrations.
  • Support pre-sales and customer security questionnaires, demonstrations, and RFP responses for enterprise customers and partners.
  • Participate in vendor selection and contract negotiation for security tools, professional services, and managed security services.
  • Assist legal and privacy teams with breach notification assessments and regulatory reporting requirements.
  • Create and maintain detailed runbooks, SOPs, and playbooks for common security operations and compliance tasks.
  • Mentor junior staff and run internal security brown-bag sessions to increase organizational security literacy.
  • Track and manage security licensing, subscription renewals, and vendor performance metrics.
  • Contribute to strategic planning for secure cloud adoption, cost optimization of security tooling, and deprecation of legacy systems.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Information security program management and governance (policy lifecycle, risk management frameworks).
  • Risk assessment and remediation: qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, control design, and risk acceptance.
  • Incident response and digital forensics: IR playbook creation, evidence handling, malware analysis basics, and post-incident reporting.
  • Security frameworks and standards: hands-on experience with ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2, PCI-DSS, GDPR, HIPAA compliance.
  • Cloud security (AWS, Azure, GCP): IAM, VPC/networking, cloud-native security services, KMS, and configuration hardening.
  • Security monitoring and logging: SIEM configuration and tuning (Splunk, QRadar, Elastic), EDR platforms (CrowdStrike, Carbon Black).
  • Identity and access management (Okta, Azure AD, SAML/OAuth, RBAC, PAM).
  • Vulnerability management and remediation workflows: experience with Nessus, Qualys, Tenable, or similar tools.
  • Application security and SSDLC: SAST/DAST tools, dependency scanning (Snyk/Dependabot), threat modeling, secure code review.
  • Penetration testing and red-team knowledge: ability to interpret pentest reports and translate findings into remediation plans.
  • Network security: firewalls, IDS/IPS, segmentation, VPNs, and secure remote access technologies.
  • Cryptography and data protection: encryption best practices, key management, tokenization, and data classification.
  • Automation and orchestration: SOAR, security policy-as-code, CI/CD integration, scripting (Python, Bash).
  • Audit and compliance management: preparing audit evidence, control testing, and remediation tracking.

(Include at least 10 of the above keywords to improve discoverability: CISSP, CISM, ISO 27001, NIST, SOC 2, SIEM, cloud security, incident response, vulnerability management, IAM.)

Soft Skills

  • Strong leadership and people management: ability to build, coach, and retain high-performing security teams.
  • Clear executive communication and reporting: translate technical risk to business impact and propose actionable options.
  • Stakeholder management and influence: collaborate with engineering, product, legal, finance and external auditors.
  • Strategic thinking and prioritization: make risk-based decisions that balance security, cost, and time-to-market.
  • Problem solving and analytical mindset: use data to drive security metrics, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement.
  • Project and program management: run complex cross-functional initiatives to completion within scope and budget.
  • Crisis management and calm under pressure: lead effective response during incidents and high-stress events.
  • Training and coaching: ability to design and deliver security awareness and role-based training programs.
  • Ethical judgement and confidentiality: handle sensitive information and investigative findings with discretion.
  • Vendor management and negotiation: assess third-party security and manage remediation or contractual requirements.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Cybersecurity, or related technical field (or equivalent practical experience).

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Business Administration (MBA) with security specialization, or related advanced degree.
  • Relevant professional certifications (CISSP, CISM, CRISC, CEH, OSCP, ISO 27001 Lead Implementer/Auditor).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science / Software Engineering
  • Information Security / Cybersecurity
  • Information Systems / IT Management
  • Risk Management / Business Administration

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5–10+ years in information security roles with progressive responsibility; 3+ years leading security teams or programs preferred.

Preferred:

  • Proven experience managing enterprise security programs in cloud-first or hybrid environments, including incident response leadership, compliance management (SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI), and security operations oversight.
  • Hands-on technical background with SIEM, EDR, IAM, cloud security, vulnerability management, and application security tooling.
  • Demonstrated success working with executive leadership and cross-functional teams to reduce risk while enabling secure product development.
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