Information Security or Cyber Security? Which term should we use?

Information security involves measures taken to protect information against unauthorized access or modification and to ensure its availability to those who are authorized to access it. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary cyber security is “measures taken to protect a computer or computer system (as on the Internet) against unauthorized access or attack.”patents.

One apparent difference between information security and cyber security is that cyber security is restricted to cyberspace which is “the online world of computer networks and especially the Internet” whereas information security is not restricted to cyberspace. So information security is a broader term than cybersecurity. It encompasses both digital and non-digital information. Organizations have both digital and non-digital information that needs to be protected, as a result they do not only require cyber security but overall information security.

We used the GoogleTrends tool to compare google searches for “information security” and “cyber security”. Searches for the phrase “cyber security” surpassed “information security” in late 2015. At this point the term “cyber security” is much more popular than “information security”.

It depends. You can’t go wrong using the term “information security” because it is broader in scope than “cyber security”. However we shouldn’t ignore the popularity of the term “cyber security”. Laymen are more familiar with the term “cyber security” than “information security”. Persons who provide information security services often say that they provide “cyber security” services because that is something most people have heard of. Who you are addressing should help you determine if you should use information security or cyber security.