Key points:

• CISOs and security professionals face immense stress due to cyber threats and data breaches. This pressure can lead to burnout, impacting their health and potentially causing ethical problems.
• Creating a company-wide culture of shared security responsibility is crucial. This can be achieved through employee training, automation, and open communication.
• There are various strategies to prevent burnout, including clear expectations and workload management from managers, work-life balance and stress management for employees themselves, and a focus on transparency and ethical decision-making within the organisation.

Security teams and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are under immense pressure to protect their organisations from data breaches and cyber threats. With the cost of a data breach reaching $4.45 million in 2023, it’s no wonder those in leadership positions are feeling the strain.

This constant pressure can lead to burnout, a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress, which can lead to long term sickness, and chronic levels of unhappiness among staff. Understanding and addressing the root causes of burnout is essential for maintaining a healthy, productive workforce.

The Risks and Impact of Burnout

According to Vendict’s 2024 CISO Burnout Report, an overwhelming 80% of CISOs classed themselves as “highly stressed”, with 63% indicating they receive little to no formal support in managing their roles, resulting in heightened stress levels. If this stress is sustained over a long period of time, the result is burnout that manifests in cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms.

Individuals may experience mental fog, difficulty concentrating, and a sense of detachment from their work. Physically, burnout can lead to chronic fatigue, headaches, and other stress-related ailments. Emotionally, it can cause feelings of helplessness, cynicism, and decreased motivation.

This is often a result of CISOs feeling that the responsibility of protecting the business falls solely to them - a heavy weight to bear when individuals are often overburdened, and operating with limited resources in the first instance. The fear of scapegoating—being blamed for mistakes and errors—exacerbates this stress. When staff fear repercussions for any slip-up, no matter how minor, it creates a toxic work environment that further fuels burnout.

A stark reminder of the consequences of burnout is the Equifax data breach of 2017, which exposed the personal data of up to 145 million people. This breach was linked to human errors where key vulnerabilities were overlooked by one member of staff, seemingly a direct result of the overwhelm this individual experienced in their role within the security team.

Burnout can also lead to ethical crises. CISOs and security professionals, burdened with the enormous responsibility of safeguarding sensitive data, may resort to covering up mistakes, falsifying reports, avoiding issues, tampering with data, or failing to disclose incidents.

These actions, while often driven by fear and desperation, can have severe legal and ethical ramifications. Joseph Sullivan, CISO at Uber, for example, was sentenced to three years probation, and 200 hours community service, as well as receiving a $50,000 fine, for covering up a cybersecurity breach by paying the hackers the ransom they demanded, and obstructing an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. Anyone with Sullivan’s level of experience would understand the consequences of his decisions, so it can only be surmised that he felt pressure to cover this breach up and protect the Uber brand at all costs.

Creating a Feeling of Shared Responsibility

Sharing the burden of security across all employees is crucial for building a human firewall within an organisation, and relieving some of the pressures put on the security team.

Every staff member should be trained to recognise potential threats, and understand who they should contact in the company if they face any issues. Regular training sessions can equip employees with the knowledge to identify phishing attempts, understand the importance of strong passwords, and follow best practices for data protection.

Bringing automation into the workplace can also enhance security efforts, allowing individuals to remediate their own risks. For instance, Metomic can send notifications via Slack to notify team members of the risks they have created, and offer solutions so they can resolve issues directly, without having to burden the security team.

Encouraging a culture of shared responsibility ensures that security becomes a collective effort, reducing the likelihood of breaches and enhancing overall organisational resilience. With 95% of cybersecurity incidents being a result of human error, this collaborative approach not only alleviates pressure on the security team but also fosters a proactive security mindset throughout the company.

Strategies to Prevent Burnout

Burnout is preventable, but it takes a holistic approach to keep it at bay. You should incorporate managerial, personal, and ethical approaches to keep your mental health in check. Let’s take a look at each of these:

Managerial Approaches

As a manager, you have a duty of care to your team, as well as to yourself. Here are some strategies you can use to ensure everyone is well cared for:

1. Create an open environment: Allow staff to share their thoughts and feedback with you, so you can address concerns as they arise. If team members feel that they can’t raise their issues with their manager, it can cause an unhealthy environment within the workplace.
2. Embrace automation: Reduce the pressure and workload on your security team by automating repetitive tasks like remediating sensitive data points, and allowing them to focus on more critical tasks.
3. Delegate, delegate, delegate: The workload should be shared to ensure no one person is overloaded, and everyone is comfortable with the amount of work they need to do.
4. Review KPIs: Unrealistic targets can put undue stress on team members, as they strive towards unattainable goals. It can also lead to them being perceived as inadequate by their colleagues if they consistently fail to meet targets. Regularly reviewing KPIs can ensure workloads are manageable and realistic.
5. Recognise staff who go the extra mile: Acknowledge the hard work and achievements of your team. Recognition can be a powerful motivator and helps to maintain a positive and supportive work environment.
6. Foster a positive security culture: Encourage a culture where security is seen as a shared responsibility across the organisation, rather than the sole duty of the security team, by keeping others engaged in security conversations, and highlighting best practices in their area.

Personal Strategies

You can’t pour from an empty cup so while you’re putting plans in place to support your team, you should also be looking to help yourself too. Here’s how:

1. Give yourself a break: Creating gaps between meetings can avoid fatigue, and give you time to reflect on the information you’re taking in.
2. Communicate positively with your own manager: Maintain open and constructive communication with your manager, being open to discussing workload, stress levels, and potential solutions collaboratively. Being dishonest in order to look good in front of your boss won’t be worth it in the long run.
3. Ensure roles are clearly defined: Understanding who is responsible for what task can prevent misunderstandings, and ensure all bases are covered so that vulnerablities aren’t missed.
4. Ask your family to call out signs of stress: Enlist the help of family and friends to recognise signs of stress and burnout; they can provide an outside perspective and support.
5. Look after yourself: Incorporating stress-relieving activities such as exercise, meditation, and eating a healthy diet into your daily routine can help you to maintain mental wellbeing.

Ethical Considerations

Finally, there are ethical considerations to consider, to ensure you don’t go against your own beliefs:

1. Always be transparent: Uphold ethical standards by being transparent about issues and incidents. Honesty is crucial for maintaining trust and integrity within the organisation.
2. Ethical decision-making: Foster a culture of ethical decision-making within your team, where staff feel empowered to do the right thing, even under pressure.
3. Support and training: Provide regular training and support to help staff navigate ethical dilemmas and make informed decisions.

How can Metomic help?

Metomic helps alleviate burnout among security professionals by leveraging automation to handle routine and repetitive tasks, such as data classification, monitoring, and alerting. This reduces the cognitive and emotional stress associated with constant vigilance and manual oversight.

By minimising the risk of human errors and allowing teams to focus on more strategic activities, Metomic fosters a more balanced and less stressful work environment, ultimately contributing to a positive security culture and improved employee well-being.

Request a personalised demo with one of our data security specialists to see how Metomic can help your business today.