The pandemic lockdown has resulted in a sudden increase in workload for cybersecurity employees, but they can avoid burnout with time-saving tools and techniques.
Security leaders acknowledge that a cybersecurity career is promising and has its own set of disadvantages. These include lack of relevantly trained resources, last-minute emergencies, and overwork. These issues have to be juggled while mitigating attacks from hackers on enterprises’ most valuable assets –employee, customer data, and intellectual property.
The resultant pressure often leads to cybersecurity professionals resigning from their jobs or leaving the domain. As per a Chartered Institute of Information Security report published by Darkreading.com, at least 54 percent of the IT security employees have either resigned from a security job profile citing reasons of burnout or overwork or have been associated professionally with someone who did.
Reduced security budgets irrelevant to the current security threat posture due to the pandemic contribute to the chaos. Cybersecurity leaders expect further budget cuts in the following years. The traditional workaround of addressing the issue by hiring more resources is no longer feasible.
CIISEC reiterates that security personnel is stretched during peak periods, but handling the burnout requires techniques to smart work and not hard work. Most organizations hope to tide over the situation with fewer resources, and better tools in place.
Read More: COVID-19 exposing the Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities of Enterprises
Understanding the business profile
The pandemic lockdown has demonstrated the need for organizations to adapt and transform rapidly, either as crisis response, technology, or customer requirements. The necessity for speedy transformation has resulted in IT security departments being in center focus. As a result, cybersecurity issues are not a technology problem anymore, but a business problem.
CIOs should consider cybersecurity as a part of business strategy. A security training mindset needs to be ingrained across the firm’s culture.
Acknowledging complexity
Pandemic has resulted in creating new, more laborious factors, increasing business complexity, which needs proper addressing. The increased complexity has directly affected organizations and forced them to keep a close eye on the industry trends like the skills gap in the cybersecurity industry.
They need to be conscious about issues like rapid cloud and digital transformation due to remote working, and as a result, rise in threats and cybercrime by hackers. They also need to navigate the regulatory environment for different data protocols based on diverse geography.
Security leaders suggest acknowledging the complexity and investing in core competencies and training to mitigate cybercrime.
Read More: Restructuring cybersecurity with innovation
Re-evaluation of business models
It is vital to reassess business practices and models. Factoring in the correct approach to cybersecurity in step with business objectives is also part of the analysis. Revaluation of existing cybersecurity tools is also advised.
It helps to list all tools, and organizations can prioritize which tools need maintenance and redundant ones. Can the budget being routed to legacy systems be redirected to hiring new sources, outsourcing resources, technology, and processes?
Continuous monitoring and threat intelligence platforms for proactive responses are crucial arsenal in the organizational security toolbox.
Analyzing and understanding the threat actors
The “hope to cope” concept adopted by many enterprises may precisely be the liability that the hackers were searching for. We are facing determined attackers, who understand the path of minimum resistance.
Adversaries will easily uncover the fact that enterprises tend to protect digital assets only during work hours. But the global nature of today’s business means that there is no downtime for hackers or business. Cybersecurity is a 24/7 need in the current scenario.
Organizations need to acknowledge the workload and burnout issue associated with the cybersecurity industry. It needs to be addressed by inculcating a culture of security-first along with relevantly trained professionals. This will help the security teams to work smartly with a peace of mind and work-life balance.
