Half of CISOs Might Quit Their Jobs in 2020 if Budgets, Cybersecurity Staff Remain Tight [Bitdefender Study]

Organizational weak spots and stressors are taking their toll on IT security professionals. 72% of infosec professionals agree that the lack of proper security tools and knowledge are huge obstacles preventing rapid incident detection and response. Furthermore, more than half of C-suite security pros are considering leaving their job if things don’t change in 2020 and beyond.

A Bitdefender survey of more than 6,000 infosec professionals in large organisations across the US, EMEA and APAC shows that while some chief information security officers (CISOs) rate their cybersecurity as ‘good’, a continued lack of budget, talent and training means that there is still significant scope for improvement.

42% of the infosec C-level thinks a lack of proper security tools within their organizations are the main obstacle preventing rapid incident detection and response.

Stress is common in most jobs. For the IT-Csuite, it’s a nightmare – literally. Half of the security pros surveyed by Bitdefender are losing sleep worrying about their organizational cybersecurity posture. Asked if they’ve ever been “kept awake at night” worrying that their company might get hacked, 49% answered “sure” without hesitation. Asked what causes the most stress in their role, 36% of CISOs cited a “lack of cybersecurity understanding from general employees.” Numerous studies in 2019 showed that the #1 weak spot in any organization is untrained staff.

33% of those surveyed also said their biggest stressor is “being under-resourced” in terms of cybersecurity staff. This, again, is no surprise considering the ever-growing cybersecurity skills gap reported each year.

During our interviews with IT security pros, we also learned that CISOs today are so stressed they are planning to leave their job if they aren’t offered the necessary resources to realize their objectives and safeguard the organization both from outside malice, and insider threats.

Over half (53%) of security professionals are considering leaving their current role due to being under-resourced both financially and in terms of staffing, our survey revealed.

Under-resourcing and cyber-attacks go hand in hand, with nearly three quarters (73%) of security professionals saying their organization is at risk of an attack due to resourcing issues. In fact, 32% of them feel they couldn’t cope with another global cyber-contagion such as GoldenEye or WannaCry.

Lastly, half of IT teams are getting fed up with the amount of alerts from their infosec solutions, indicating there is a dire need for efficient endpoint detection and response deployments across the organizations we surveyed.

To learn more about the main organizational weak spots, the key pain points cited by infosec professionals, and how upper management can hold on to their security chiefs in 2020, download our free Hacked Off! Report.