Survey: What’s the Top Security Stressor? Lack of Support

Security professionals are working against lack of vision, buy-in or support from executives, a LogRythm survey has found

Security professionals work under constant stress: They are most likely to take the blame if their organization is breached, not to mention a host of increasing threats and increasingly complex environments to defend. However, these aren’t the top stressors security professionals say they face.

According to a recent survey from security information and event management platform provider LogRhythm, 57% of security professionals surveyed said their security program doesn’t receive the strategic vision, buy-in or budget needed to succeed. At the same time, 41% said they don’t have enough time to do their jobs, while about one-fifth said that they don’t get enough time with executives.

Additionally, survey respondents said executives aren’t accountable enough for strategic security decisions, and it was the top reason (42%) for security professionals’ desire to leave their jobs. It’s no wonder 75% of professionals surveyed said they experience more work stress today than they did two years ago.

And, for whatever reasons, companies still have a tough time finding security staff. According to the survey, 47% of companies are still trying to fill at least three security positions.

The report also showed that security professionals are overwhelmed with security toolsets, and those surveyed said they would benefit from consolidation in myriad ways including less maintenance (63%), faster issue detection (54%), identification (53%) and resolution (49%), as well as lower costs (46%) and improved security posture (45%).

Additionally, 68% of respondents said their organizations have installed security tools with duplicate functionality and 56% said that the overlap was not planned. And it appears the redundant spend is budget that could be applied elsewhere, as 58% said they need increased money for security tools.

These findings echo survey findings from Ponemon Research for the report, “The Cybersecurity Illusion: The Emperor Has No Clothes,” which found enterprises have a lot of security tools but not much insight into how well they are working. According to that survey, 53% said they don’t know how effective their security tools are and 39% don’t think they are getting all the benefits they should from their tools.

It’s not for a lack of trying: Ponemon found respondents are using 47 different information security products on average.

The survey respondents in the LogRhythm study cited five popular ways organizations can reduce stress: increasing security budget (44%), hiring experienced security staff (42%), improving collaboration among IT (42%), increasing more executive support (41%) and fully staffing their security teams (39%).

The LogRhythm survey is based on the responses from security professionals at medium businesses and large enterprises across seniority levels. The survey was completed by 308 qualified participants in April and spanned all continents.