Page 152 - Cyber Defense eMagazine January 2024

Reducing Burnout and Increasing SOC Retention: How

Leaders Can Improve Their Employees’ Lives and Improve

Security

By Kayla Williams, CISO, Devo

The significant skills gap and burnout of current personnel are two of the most frequent challenges
cybersecurity leaders must solve. ISC(2) estimates there’s still a 3.4 million-person deficit in cybersecurity
worldwide. And this problem might soon grow worse. A new Wakefield Research study found that 85%
of participating IT security professionals think they’ll need to leave at least their job, if not their
organization, because of the severity of their burnout issues. It’s gotten so bad that 24% of the survey
respondents saidthey may switch to a different career altogether.

We can’t afford to widen the security skills gap by letting burnout run rampant. Overcoming these two
issues is crucial for security leaders, but doing so will require a grasp of how serious a threat burnout is
and the technologies/procedures needed to address it.

What’s happening in the SOC

Burnout and the cyber skills shortage affect virtually every function in cybersecurity, but they’re
particularly severe in the SOC. The Wakefield Research survey also found that 76% of respondents
believe their IT leaders couldn’t make it through one day of trying to manage the massive alert workload.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – January 2024 Edition 152
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