Information security professionals face challenges galore in 2008.

Information security professionals won't have much time to kick back this year.

In Information Security's Priorities 2008 survey, 1,149 readers cite many challenges, primary among those being mobility and security, identity and access management, protecting data and intellectual property and vulnerability management.

These are the pieces of the security puzzle that have taken center stage as businesses work to comply with regulatory requirements and industry standards (75 percent of those surveyed said they would be spending more time on compliance in 2008), operate more efficiently, cut costs and avoid embarrassing and damaging security breaches.

Ultimately, today's regulatory and threat environment requires that organizations work on multiple fronts. For example, encrypting a piece of information isn't enough; there needs to be some system for tracking what users have done with the data, says Ben Halpert, an information security researcher and practitioner. Consequently, data protection goes hand in hand with identity and access management.