Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire
As concerns about employee burnout and skilled staff shortages in cybersecurity grow, our study aims to better understand the contributing factors to burnout in this field. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, we analyze self-reported job and personal characteristics, along with digital activity data...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Association for Computing Machinery
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/154385 |
| _version_ | 1811082057818832896 |
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| author | Nepal, Subigya Hernandez, Javier Lewis, Robert Chaudhry, Ahad Houck, Brian Knudsen, Eric Rojas, Raul Tankus, Ben Prafullchandra, Hemma Czerwinski, Mary |
| author_facet | Nepal, Subigya Hernandez, Javier Lewis, Robert Chaudhry, Ahad Houck, Brian Knudsen, Eric Rojas, Raul Tankus, Ben Prafullchandra, Hemma Czerwinski, Mary |
| author_sort | Nepal, Subigya |
| collection | MIT |
| description | As concerns about employee burnout and skilled staff shortages in cybersecurity grow, our study aims to better understand the contributing factors to burnout in this field. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, we analyze self-reported job and personal characteristics, along with digital activity data from 35 incident responders, identifying several factors such as high workload, time pressure, and lack of support from management. Our findings reveal that over half of the participants experience burnout (N=19), which is linked to increased workload, limited control, poor teamwork, and inadequate recognition. Burned-out responders often work more than 40 hours per week, have poor sleep quality, and engage in more email activities, meetings, and after-hour collaborations. Through our research, we also identify coping strategies individuals use to mitigate these stressors. Based on our findings, we provide practical recommendations to help organizations better support their cybersecurity incident response teams. While our study acknowledges limitations and suggests future research directions, it contributes significantly to understanding the challenges faced by cybersecurity incident responders. Our insights offer a comprehensive understanding of burnout factors in this domain and have broader implications for other high-stress work environments consistent with the interdisciplinary nature of CSCW. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:56:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/154385 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:56:45Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1543852024-09-19T05:29:29Z Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire Nepal, Subigya Hernandez, Javier Lewis, Robert Chaudhry, Ahad Houck, Brian Knudsen, Eric Rojas, Raul Tankus, Ben Prafullchandra, Hemma Czerwinski, Mary As concerns about employee burnout and skilled staff shortages in cybersecurity grow, our study aims to better understand the contributing factors to burnout in this field. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, we analyze self-reported job and personal characteristics, along with digital activity data from 35 incident responders, identifying several factors such as high workload, time pressure, and lack of support from management. Our findings reveal that over half of the participants experience burnout (N=19), which is linked to increased workload, limited control, poor teamwork, and inadequate recognition. Burned-out responders often work more than 40 hours per week, have poor sleep quality, and engage in more email activities, meetings, and after-hour collaborations. Through our research, we also identify coping strategies individuals use to mitigate these stressors. Based on our findings, we provide practical recommendations to help organizations better support their cybersecurity incident response teams. While our study acknowledges limitations and suggests future research directions, it contributes significantly to understanding the challenges faced by cybersecurity incident responders. Our insights offer a comprehensive understanding of burnout factors in this domain and have broader implications for other high-stress work environments consistent with the interdisciplinary nature of CSCW. 2024-05-02T19:41:04Z 2024-05-02T19:41:04Z 2024-04-17 2024-05-01T07:46:16Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2573-0142 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/154385 Nepal, Subigya, Hernandez, Javier, Lewis, Robert, Chaudhry, Ahad, Houck, Brian et al. 2024. "Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 8 (CSCW1). PUBLISHER_POLICY en 10.1145/3637304 Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. The author(s) application/pdf Association for Computing Machinery Association for Computing Machinery |
| spellingShingle | Nepal, Subigya Hernandez, Javier Lewis, Robert Chaudhry, Ahad Houck, Brian Knudsen, Eric Rojas, Raul Tankus, Ben Prafullchandra, Hemma Czerwinski, Mary Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire |
| title | Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire |
| title_full | Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire |
| title_fullStr | Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire |
| title_full_unstemmed | Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire |
| title_short | Burnout in Cybersecurity Incident Responders: Exploring the Factors that Light the Fire |
| title_sort | burnout in cybersecurity incident responders exploring the factors that light the fire |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/154385 |
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