45% of cybersecurity pros are considering quitting the industry due to stress

Deep Instinct released the third edition of its annual Voice of SecOps Report, focused on the increasing and unsustainable stress levels among 1,000 C-suite and senior cybersecurity professionals across all industries and roles. The research found that 45% of respondents have considered quitting the industry due to stress, with the primary issues being an unrelenting threat from ransomware and the expectations to always be on call or available.

The research reinforced that paying a ransom remains a hotly debated topic. 38% of respondents admitted to paying a ransom, with 46% claiming their data was still exposed by the hackers; and 44% could not restore all their data even after a ransom was paid.

The great cybersecurity resignation

The job of defending against increasingly advanced threats on a daily and hourly basis is causing more problems than ever as 46% of respondents felt their stress had measurably increased over the last 12 months. This was especially the case for those working within critical infrastructure. These increased stress levels have led cybersecurity professionals to consider leaving the industry altogether, joining in the “Great Resignation,” rather than moving to a new cybersecurity role at a new employer.

  • 45% admit to considering quitting the industry on at least one or two occasions
  • 46% know at least one person who left cybersecurity altogether in the past year due to stress

Who’s stressed and why?

Stress is not only felt by SOC teams and others on the cyber frontlines but also among those in the C-Suite who are making the difficult decisions on how to use their available resources more efficiently.

Biggest stress culprit: Ransomware

45% of respondents said that ransomware was the biggest concern of their company’s C-Suite. The survey found that 38% of respondents admitted to paying up in order to receive the encryption key primarily to avoid downtime (61%) or bad publicity (53%). However, paying the ransom did not guarantee a resolution post-attack in many cases.

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Source: Help Net Security