As cyberattacks become more frequent, complex, and powerful, cybersecurity professionals are under increasing pressure to keep businesses safe and secure. However, the demands of their jobs are causing burnout and stress among these essential workers. Experts have warned that too many organizations are still relying on patchwork security approaches, rather than addressing root problems.
The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation, which has increased the potential cyberattack surface and added to the number of skilled security workers needed to protect against these threats. The complexity of environments has multiplied risk, leading to exhaustion and burnout among the limited number of experts trying to manage it all. It is clear that something needs to change.
One of the essential steps that IT leaders can take to reduce the burden on cybersecurity professionals is to simplify. Leaders can start by identifying their organization’s most critical business services and, if possible, moving them to the cloud. They can also refactor applications to build in security and resiliency, rather than adding these as an afterthought. They can retire every point solution they’re able to and work toward an integrated, interoperable infrastructure that is easier to manage and defend.
However, technology tools alone cannot solve security problems. The bigger-picture solutions depend on people and the choices they make. Embracing simplicity can not only cut costs and increase operational efficiency but also ensure more manageable workloads for cybersecurity professionals, which reduces burnout.
Another way to support cybersecurity professionals and reduce burnout is to prioritize resiliency. If organizations have done everything possible to anticipate, protect, withstand and recover from an incident, damage, including psychological damage to employees, can be minimized. Following a resilient approach, proactively planning for cyber events instead of waiting to react, involves a mix of forethought and technology investment.
Organizations should put incident response plans into writing and make sure they’re accessible in physical form outside of computer storage, which can be compromised. The next step is to practice the plan extensively so that teams know exactly what needs to be done and who’s doing what in the case of an incident. A carefully practiced plan combined with recovery automation can speed up what can otherwise turn into a 24/7 recovery effort.
Another critical aspect of resiliency is ensuring that critical IT assets, such as Active Directory servers and backup servers, are protected, and using cyber vaults can also help organizations quickly bounce back from attacks. A faster recovery can ultimately help alleviate the workloads that lead security teams to burn out.
To better support cybersecurity professionals, leaders must also ensure that cybersecurity is a priority shared across the entire organization. Cyber risk management should be a collective responsibility. Incident responders shouldn’t be the only first line of defense. A top-down approach is necessary. Security, resiliency, and recovery must be a boardroom priority.
The C-suite must insist on updating and testing business continuity and recovery plans on an annual basis, regularly conducting assessments to measure preparedness for risks and prioritizing vulnerabilities. They also must be confident they can recover their systems and data from disasters and security breaches in a manner that meets their documented recovering time and recovery point objectives to protect their business. Enterprises must adopt a secure-by-design culture, embedding security each step along the way to create software, architecture, and networks as impervious as possible to attacks.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that the cybersecurity landscape is becoming more complicated, and cybersecurity professionals are the ones who bear the brunt of it. The wave of burnout that is affecting the industry is too obvious to ignore. However, with the right approach and priorities, organizations can reduce the burden on these essential workers, build more resilient systems and networks, and ultimately prevent catastrophic cyberattacks.