35 Years of Information Security: Information Systems vs Information Security Research – Comparative Analysis

Abstract

From 1977 to 2012 we saw an important number of research studies done around information security topic. How information systems research performed when compared to information security research? Our study aimed at comparing the past 35 years of information systems (IS) and information security (InfoSec) research in terms of themes, theories and methods used. We analyzed 1,588 papers from 23 different journals and conferences. We found that security research received good focus from IS and InfoSec researchers. While majority of security themes were equally studied in both disciplines, we saw more focus on some themes in IS (e.g. Economics) or InfoSec (e.g. Access Control) outlets. Regarding methods and theories both disciplines had similar results which revealed that 57% of all papers do not have any theoretical foundation, and 81% of papers use ‘subjective-argumentative’ method to support their work.

Keywords: information security, information systems, comparative analysis, security research.