The security skills that appear to be attracting the most interest from employers, Paller added, are the more "hands-on" ones, such as , penetration testing, and incident handling.

And the salaries being paid to security professionals continue to "show that security skills are highly valued," Paller said. Nearly 40% of the respondents to the SANS survey said they earned more than US$100,000 annually, while only 1.65% said they were being paid less than $40,000 per year. Even those with less than three years of experience reported earning an average salary of almost $72,000, according to the SANS report, which notes that security salaries generally appeared to be highest on the West Coast.

Meanwhile, Vero Beach, Fla.-based Foote Partners says in its report that it has noted a continuing steady increase in the total amounts companies are willing to pay . The increases are still coming even as the average amounts paid to IT pros with 175 other tech certifications have continued a decline that began in 2006, according to Foote.

The consulting firm tracks the pay premiums earned by more than 22,500 IT workers and provides quarterly updates on its findings, breaking out the results on the basis of 354 different skills and certifications. In 2007, "we started to see a real uptick in spending for security labor," said , the firm's founder and CEO.

Over the last six months of 2008, employees with security certifications saw a 2% increase in the premiums that companies were willing to pay them above and beyond their basic salaries, Foote said. He added that such premiums have risen by an aggregate of about 3.4% over the last 18 months.