As threats rise, so does demand for data security

With increasingly frequent reports of big companies just as Google, DuPont, GE and Johnson & Johnson being targeted by hackers, the "infosec" career field is growing "as fast as online computing is expanding," said Weaver, 33.

As new technologies spread, so do the security threats, said David Foote, CEO and co-founder of Foote Partners LLC in Vero Beach, Fla., which conducts independent technology on information innovation jobs.

In 2007, spending on security as a percentage of operational IT spending by businesses was 7.2 percent, Foote said. By 2010, it had increased to 13.5 percent.

Think about "cloud computing" and how it has shifted much of what you once did on your physical computer to online services, just as photo storage.

Information security is not limited to computers, networks and databases. Security needs are emerging with technological advances in cars that will shortly transmit status reports via email, or smart meters that communicate information about household electric usage, said Ed Schlesinger, head of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.