Intelligent CIO APAC Issue 02 | Page 26

TRENDING “ AS BUSINESSES ACROSS THE WORLD ACCELERATE DIGITAL ADOPTION TO ENSURE OPERATIONS CONTINUE TO RUN SEAMLESSLY FOLLOWING THE ONSET OF COVID-19, THE PRESSURE ON CYBERSECURITY TEAMS TO PERFORM ARE EVEN HIGHER THAN BEFORE. their security program suffers for a lack of executive support. In fact, executive accountability, or lack thereof, is the primary reason security professionals want to leave their current job. “When asked what would help alleviate their stress, executive support was in the top five, with the remaining four items directly controlled by executives, such as a co-operative environment and properly skilled and staffed security teams with the needed budget. Part of the report includes: “Those in the security space have been seeing more and more reports of the heightened stress on the security operations center (SOC) and the analysts and managers who run it. It is no surprise that a whopping 75 percent of security professionals say they have more work stress now than they did just two years ago. There are many reasons that might factor into this rapid increase of pressure on the SOC team – including evolving threats, Digital Transformation, rapidly increasing data and changing environments, inadequate security solutions, and undertrained and under-skilled team members. “But what may come as a surprise are the two primary causes for this increase: 1) lack of time, and 2) executive interactions. When asked whether their security program has enough executive support – specifically, do you have enough budget, does the executive team provide a strategic vision for security, and do you feel as though you have the buyin you need for your program – more than half the respondents said they do not feel like the support is significant. “The explicit finding that executives are part of the problem grows as more than half of security professionals state “When asked what would help alleviate their stress, increasing the security budget was the most commonly selected answer. “When later asked what this budget would go towards, 58 percent of respondents said they needed increased funding for tools, and 47 percent of respondents said they need to grow the security team. These points lead back to why executive support is so critical to a security program. Without it – and the budgetary support that goes with it – the team is unable to keep up with the burden of securing the organization’s data.” • 26 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com