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Cybersecurity Burnout: Mental Health Suffers from Unrelenting Attacks
A job in cybersecurity offers one of the top paychecks in IT. But the flip side of the job is that it can be incredibly demanding, stressful, and a job where a significant number of people suffer burnout.
A study of UK cybersecurity professionals found that more than half of them have left their job or have worked with someone who has left their job because of burnout. Ponemon found that 65 percent of Security Operations Center (SOC) professionals consider quitting because of the stress.
A report by PsyberResilience found that “the more than 700,000 professionals that make up America’s cybersecurity workforce are increasingly being described as our digital first responders—a first and unflinching line of defense against an unrelenting wave of cyber-attacks against businesses, governments, and entire communities. Like all first responders, there’s increasing concern about the mental wellness of this workforce. Not only has cybersecurity become a very high stress and quick burnout industry, many of those working in it entered the field already burdened with mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, and PTSD.”
Ryan K. Louie, a psychiatrist for the Foundation Physicians Medical Group, said that “what is unique about cybersecurity is that there are always emerging threats… coming from left field – things that people don’t know about. There is also an adversary, and adversaries are intellectual, innovative, and creative, so there’s that constant need to always be prepared for something.”
A report by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) outlines some of the aspects of a cybersecurity job that can cause stress:
- Staying current with security and IT initiatives
- Understaffed and underbudgeted
- Interacting with end users to educate about cybersecurity risks
- Trying to get business leaders to understand cybersecurity risks
- An overwhelming workload with issues that can strike at any time of day
- Constant emergencies and disruptions
- The fear of getting something wrong
- Dealing with internal and regulatory audits
