Cyber Security Staff Burnout Costs Firms $600m A Year

Uploaded on 2024-06-25 in NEWS-Cybersecurity News, JOBS-Careers, FREE TO VIEW

Cybersecurity professionals say that work-related stress, fatigue, and burnout are making them less productive, including taking extended sick leave, costing US enterprises almost $626 million and UK enterprises almost £130 million in lost productivity every year.

That’s according to a new study, “Building a firewall against cybersecurity burnout”, recently released by Hack The Box.

British and US enterprises may be throwing away hundreds of millions because of productivity losses due to burned-out cyber security staff, according to Hack The Box. The skills specialist calculated the sum by first working out the average daily wage for cyber security professionals, using Infosecurity Institute figures. It then used its own stats revealing the average number of sick days taken per year per worker (3.4) and average number of days lost to poor productivity (5.1), assuming an eight-hour working day. These figures were then extrapolated out according to the number of cyber security professionals in the US and UK, and total number of days lost.

According to Hack The Box. UK employers may be losing a combined $130m annually, while their US counterparts could be down by as much as $626m due to lost productivity.

The research pointed the blame squarely at employee burnout. It claimed 84% of responding cyber security professionals are experiencing stress, fatigue and burnout due to the rapid pace of technological change, mounting threat volumes and being forced to perform outside their skillset. It added that three-quarters (74%) have taken time off due to work-related mental well-being problems.

Interestingly, 90% of CISOs globally said they are concerned about the impact of stress, fatigue and burnout on their security team’s well-being, versus just 47% of CEOs.

“What we’ve discovered shows just how difficult the job is and that there is a significant gap of understanding between the board and the professionals,” said Haris Pylarinos, CEO at Hack The Box. “We’re calling for business leaders to work more closely with cyber security professionals to make mental well-being a priority and actually provide the solutions they need to succeed. It’s not just the right thing to do, it makes business sense.”

Commenting on this, Jamie Ahktar, Co-Founder and CEO at CyberSmart said "Hack the Box’s study echoes the findings of our report on SMEs and the cost of living crisis from 2023. Whether through stress or overwork, employee burnout poses a security risk for all businesses."

Tired, stressed staff are far more likely to make security mistakes that lead to breaches or even develop a negative view of their employer and turn to malicious acts.

“So how do we counter this? In the long term, we need to put time and investment into the next generation of cyber security professionals, not least by presenting it as an exciting and fulfilling career opportunity for young people... we need to do two things: upskill the existing workforce with basic cyber skills and automate those elements of security that can be performed without intensive human intervention." Ahtar said.

Hack the Box | Infosecurity Magazine | Cybersmart | CIISEC

Image: Andrea Piacquadio

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