It’s Time to Break the SOC Analyst Burnout Cycle

Cybersecurity leaders have sounded off about burnout issues across the industry for years.

Cybersecurity leaders have long been aware of the burnout issues that plague the security operations center (SOC). This leads to a high turnover of security professionals, disrupting the SOC workflow and exposing the organization to increased risk. According to the Devo 2022 SOC Performance Report, 71% of respondents rate the pain of SOC staffers at 6 through 9 out of 10, with too much information, more work than they can handle, difficulty finding and keeping SOC experts, insufficient downtime, too many tools (and lack of tool integration), and too many alerts being the main sources of their pain. This makes it difficult to attract and retain skilled SOC talent, with 55% of respondents saying they have considered walking away from their jobs due to the pressure they feel. The average time it takes to fill a position is seven months, with 15% of SOC leaders saying it takes two years or longer to fill a SOC role. 23% of leaders say they lost up to 19% of their staff, and some respondents lost 40% or more of their SOC teams.

SOC staffers favor a mental well-being approach to addressing pain, with 41% saying “stress management” and “psychological counseling” would help. 54% of leaders and 39% of staff said spending more money on SOC services would help alleviate any pain associated with working in the SOC. However, none of the SOC leaders chose “recognition from senior leadership” as a possible remedy, which could be indicative of a lack of understanding from the top of what exactly it is that SOC teams do daily.

To break the cycle of burnout and turnover in the SOC, improved communication and collaboration between leaders and staff is essential to ensure analysts feel supported and heard. Additionally, senior leaders should be provided with metrics that show open versus closed tickets, false positives, overtime, number of potential high or critical threats investigated, and the level of effort involved to get a better picture of what SOC teams contribute to the security of their organization. SOC Analyst Appreciation Day on October 19 will be a chance to tackle these challenges and more.

📓 It’s Time to Break the SOC Analyst Burnout Cycle 👉🏽 Cybersecurity leaders are aware of burnout issues in the SOC. 👉🏽 Burnout leads to high turnover and increased risk. 👉🏽 SOC staff are overworked, lack downtime, and struggle with tools. 👉🏽 Attracting and retaining skilled SOC talent is difficult. 👉🏽 The average time to fill a position is seven months. 👉🏽 SOC leaders lose up to 40% of their staff. 👉🏽 Mental well-being approaches are needed to address pain. 👉🏽 Improved communication and collaboration are essential to support analysts. 👉🏽 Senior leaders need metrics to understand SOC contributions. 👉🏽 SOC Analyst Appreciation Day will address these challenges.

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#Cybersecurity #SOC #Burnout #MentalWellness #Communication