Analyzing Information Systems Security Research to Find Key Topics, Trends, and Opportunities

Abstract

What are the key topics for Information Systems (IS) security researchers? How have these topics been changing, and what topics are emerging to offer new opportunities for research? We address these questions by analyzing the abstracts of 261 articles focusing on IS security that have appeared in leading IS journals and journals devoted to this area. Using Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to analyze the text of these abstracts uncovers five primary research topics: Security Design & Management, Business Operations Security, Behavioral Aspects, Authentication & Integrity Controls, and Prevention & Detection. These five primary topics are aggregates of more granular topics that are utilized to find trends to understand the changing complexion of IS security research. Our study contributes by developing the key topics and their trends in this area using an analytical and replicable method to synthesize the existing research.