Stress, Burnout, and Security Fatigue in Cybersecurity: A Human Factors Problem

Abstract

Stress, burnout, and security fatigue continue as slight destroyers of strong cybersecurity and significant human factors concerns. The persistence of these human performance issues is concerning given the lack of mitigation and integration of human factors practitioners to mitigate these adverse risk circumstances. Security fatigue is not a new phenomenon but the evolving nature of cybersecurity results in various sub-categories of security fatigue; thus, making it a difficult problem to solve. Stress and burnout are major causes of short tenures in senior roles for security executives. Business decision-makers lack the expertise to explore the negative influences of stress, burnout, and security fatigue on cybersecurity. Technology-led cycles are organizations’ primary course of action to mitigate cybersecurity threats, resulting in complexity debt and making businesses more vulnerable to attacks. Human factors professionals can identify high-friction areas that degrade human performance and implement initiatives to reduce the risk. Human performance degradation in cybersecurity is a critical risk factor and requires immediate attention, given that cybercriminals continue to exploit human weaknesses to gain access to sensitive and critical infrastructure.

Keywords

• complexity debt
• cybersecurity
• behavior
• burnout
• fatigue
• human factors
• human performance
• security fatigue
• and stress