Nearly half of the cybersecurity leaders will be changing jobs by 2025 mostly due to work-related stress.
Researchers at Gartner say that cybersecurity professionals are facing unsustainable levels of stress.
Gartner’s director analyst Deepti Gopal said that chief information security officers were on the defence.
“The psychological impact of this directly affects decision quality and the performance of cybersecurity leaders and their teams.”
This means that talent turnover is also especially high within cybersecurity professionals given the many market opportunities, which ultimately becomes a security threat for teams.
Gartner’s research found that compliance-centric cybersecurity programmes, low executive support and subpar industry-level maturity are all indicators of an organisation that does not view security risk management as critical to business success.
Organisations of this type are likely to experience higher attrition as talent leaves for roles where their impact is felt and valued.
“Burnout and voluntary attrition are outcomes of poor organisational culture,” said Gopal. “While eliminating stress is an unrealistic goal, people can manage incredibly challenging and stressful jobs in cultures where they’re supported.”
Gartner found that by 2025 the loss of talent and stress-related mistakes will be responsible for over half of significant cyber incidents – particularly as threat actors increasingly see humans as the most vulnerable point of exploitation.
A Gartner survey conducted in May and June 2022 among 1,310 employees revealed that 69 per cent of employees have bypassed their organisation’s cybersecurity guidance in the past 12 months. In the survey, 74 per cent of employees said they would be willing to bypass cybersecurity guidance if it helped them or their team achieve a business objective.
