"We need people with liberal arts degrees that work in security operations right now," he said. "They're not deeply technical, but they're able to communicate and help companies to plan strategies. For example, if you are going to be engaging in social media, how would this content, if compromised, create a security threat? Those are things that have to be attacked by a person who works on both sides of the fence."

Foote said there are now legions of "hybrid IT-business professionals" in the market, and the demand for them is not waning.

Of the certifications that are gaining value, Foote said the most highly sought after are in more general areas such as project management, , networking and communications and systems administration and engineering.

"The definition of an IT professional has changed from a pure play to a subject matter expert," Foote said. "It's better not to get another certification for your tool belt but to go and get some business courses, take some marketing courses or operations courses."

Far from being on the decline, IT jobs are increasing to the tune of 123,000 in the past nine months, Foote said. But, while there are currently about 4 million IT specific jobs listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 20 million to 24 million IT workers who are employed by lines of business that aren't funded under an IT budget line item, Foote said.