66% of Cybersecurity Analysts Experienced Burnout This Year, Report Finds

Today, application security provider Promon released the results of a survey of 311 cybersecurity professionals taken at this year's Black Hat Europe expo earlier this month. Sixty-six percent of the respondents claim to have experienced burnout this year. The survey also found that 51% reported working more than four hours per week over their contracted hours. VentureBeat reports: Over 50% responded that workload was the biggest source of stress in their positions, followed by 19% who cited management issues, 12% pointing to difficult relationships with colleagues, and 11% suggesting it was due to inadequate access to the required tools. Just 7% attributed stress to being underpaid. Above all, the research highlights that cybersecurity analysts are expected to manage an unmanageable workload to keep up with threat actors, which forces them to work overtime and adversely effects their mental health.

This research comes not only as the cyber skills gap continues to grow, but also as organizations continue to single out individuals and teams as responsible for breaches. Most (88%) security professionals report they believe a blame culture exists somewhat in the industry, with 38% in the U.S. seeing such a culture as 'heavily prevalent.' With so many security professionals being held responsible for breaches, it's no surprise that many resort to working overtime to try and keep their organizations safe -- at great cost to their own mental health.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.