Cybersecurity has risen to the top of every organisation’s priority list over the past few years, and is now considered one of the most critical functions for today’s enterprises. In addition, security has always been a catch up game, with bad actors one step ahead, and is therefore vulnerable to evolving, and increasingly complex cyber threats.
The common maxim today, is that it’s no longer a case of “if” but “when” and “how often” an organisation will be breached, which places cyber security practitioners under immense pressure, and keeps them up at night.
The pandemic certainly didn’t help the situation. Practically overnight, we witnessed a mass exodus of workforces moving to working from home environments, and while in theory security teams knew what had to happen, they simply weren’t prepared for this at the scale at which it happened.
All of a sudden, the attack surface grew exponentially, and security professionals had to figure out how to secure connections, devices and applications that were outside of the enterprise’s control.
Moreover, additionally, the pandemic rendered security reviews, audits, and overseeing processes infinitely more difficult to carry out, and the lack of face-to-face events and training sessions, not only left security teams behind, it widened an already gaping chasm when it comes to skills in this sector.
Security became overworked
Security became overworked, anxious and stressed, and as we all know, when feeling like this, we become more vulnerable to being tricked by clever threat actors who will leave no depths unplumbed when it comes to achieving their malicious ends.
At the same time, studies reveal that although cyber security budgets are rising, it’s not nearly enough to keep up with the advanced threats that litter the landscape today.
In a nutshell, the move to working from home not only made managing and maintaining security systems and processes fare more difficult to manage, and data harder to secure, but it came hand in hand with a massive rise in the number of attacks, and sophistication in attackers’ methods.
The result?
Digital wellbeing for cyber security professionals has become critical. Training to help them take a more mindful approach to how they live their lives has become a key part of surviving the demands we face in this digital age of a post-pandemic and hyper-connected world. We need to implement this before digital fatigue pushed the industry even closer to burnout, and sees the skills gap widen even further.
During a time in modern history when many businesses and functions have floundered, cybersecurity teams continue to face more pressure than ever as the corporate world fluctuates between dispersed, hybrid and office based working combined with an equally challenging set of cyber threats attempting to exploit human-shaped vulnerabilities. Demand for the cybersecurity expert’s skill set is higher than ever, meanwhile, digital fatigue is pushing us closer to burnout.
Ditching the tech is not an option – instead, join this two-day virtual retreat for the opportunity to reset, refuel, and rediscover how it feels to function at peak performance. Log off ready to return to your role armed with tools, techniques and micro-practices designed to sustain healthier ways of working in the long-term.