Ransomware Is Driving Cyber Security Professionals To Consider Quitting

Persistent ransomware threats and looming, large-scale attacks are pushing some security professionals towards leaving their chosen career. Cyber security has become a hot button issue for businesses around the world, particularly ransomware. The cyber threat has become common threat for every type of business.

Now, a report by cyber security company Deep Instinct has found that 46% of senior and executive-level cybersecurity professionals have considered quitting the industry due to stress. 

Ransomware is a type of malware that prevents you from accessing your computer, or the data that is stored on it. The computer itself may become locked, or the data on it might be stolen, deleted or encrypted. Typically, victims asked to contact the attacker via an anonymous email address or follow instructions on an anonymous web page, to make payment. The payment is usually demanded in a crypto currency, most often Bitcoin, in order to unlock your computer, or access your data. 

The cyber security industry is stretched thin. Ransomware attacks are now so prolific that some companies simply cannot help every newly hacked victim get back online and the chronic shortage of skilled workers means no immediate prospect of relief.

According to Deep Instinct, “More than 90% of cyber security professionals are stressed in their role   Nearly half of the respondents (46%) have thought about quitting the industry and stress levels are increasing across all sectors,” says the Report.  

Deep Instinct's Report is based on the responses of 1,000 senior cybersecurity professionals from companies in the US, UK, Germany and France. All interviewees worked for businesses with 1,000 employees or more, and for businesses with annual revenues of at least US $500m across financial services, retail and eCommerce, healthcare, manufacturing, public sector, critical infrastructure, and technology. 

The more senior the cyber security role, the more stressful the job   A significant proportion of professionals concede that stress is negatively   impacting their ability to do their job.   

“There appears to be a widespread adoption of completely counter-productive   measures, such as switching off alerts because cyber security teams find them to be overwhelming   Paying off the ransomware criminals is in the aftermath of an attack results in  trouble-free consequences in just 16% of cases... We’ve identified that more cyber security professionals than ever are seriously considering leaving the industry permanently because of these pressures, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the organisations that rely on their vigilance." says the Report.

This is being driven by an "unrelenting threat from ransomware", as well as supply chain attacks on a scale similar to the 2020 SolarWinds attack and the 2021 Kaseya ransomware attack and both have had severe consequences for organisations attacked, Deep Instinct found.

 The burden of preventing such attacks weighs heavily on those tasked with keeping networks and wider organisational systems secure

More than 90% of cyber security professionals are stressed in their roles, with a "significant proportion" of professionals conceding that this is negatively impacting their ability to do their jobs. Those in leadership positions are likely to be feeling pressures of the industry more acutely, the report found: one in three C-Suite executives, including CISOs, CTOs, ITOs and IT strategy directors, said they were 'highly stressed'. 

Cyber security problems have been exacerbated by the move to remote working, which has made network security more challenging for organisations. "Senior cybersecurity executives acknowledge that their stress levels are impacting decision-making and can have implications for the security posture of companies," the report added. 
"The stress we're seeing across the cyber industry appears to be accelerating the exodus of talented people from the industry: a particular challenge when many cybersecurity defences and mitigation processes are human-dependent, requiring constant monitoring and intervention."

"Without a singular focus on one type of attack, resources are stretched thin and its obvious to see how a SecOps team may feel deflated against the challenges they face." While organisations are typically advised not to pay hackers in exchange for encrypted data, cyber security professionals are doing so in order to avoid downtime and the associated reputational damage should the attack become public.

More than a third (38%) of survey respondents admitted to both experiencing a ransomware attack and paying the ransom in exchange for the decryption key, compared to 62% that didn't pay. A big problem is that paying hackers off does not guarantee the safe return of company data:

• 46% of those who paid said records or sensitive information was exposed regardless.

• 45% were unable to restore all their data

• 23% of respondents were hit by a subsequent extortion demand after paying the ransom.

Working in cyber security is a hard job, exacerbated by the long, stressful hours that cyber security incident responders have to spend putting out the fires that ransomware cause to ignite 

Worse, the cyber security field is very short-staffed with  74% of organisations reporting that a lack of cyber security skills has had an effect their organisation, while only 9% of millennials have reportedly expressed interested in the industry.

Deep Instinct:       NCSC:     CheckPoint:       Proofpoint:       NBC:       ZDNet:    Tech.co: 

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