Launched at the start of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, a number of CISOs and cybersecurity professionals have joined forces to create ‘Mental Health in Cybersecurity’ – a research paper and mental health charter setting out standards and good practices for the industry to follow as a way to curb the current high levels of burn-out, stress and fatigue in the industry.

The new research paper, spearheaded by Sarb Sembhi, CTO at Virtually Informed, and peer reviewed by members of the cybersecurity community, aims to bring to light current industry working practices, support resources and eventually provide a charter of actionable aims that can be employed across the sector.

The report hopes to challenge the way the industry deals with burnout, stress, and mental health problems.

As Sarb Sembhi says: “We believe that safeguards need to be put in place to protect the professionals in our industry. With almost 3.4 million unfilled jobs in cybersecurity according to (ISC)², and with almost 50% of professionals saying that their stress levels mean they will leave the profession in the next year according to recent research from Gartner, we have to take action.

“The private sector cannot do it alone; we need Government and industry bodies to support us if we are going to keep our most valued and experienced members.”

The immediate actions of the Charter will be:

• Professional and certifying bodies should include the awareness of the importance of mental health and stress issues into their knowledge domains, certifications, standards, frameworks, and best practices.
• Governments, professional and certifying bodies should make funding available for research on mental health in cybersecurity.
• Enterprises should actively include mental health in their strategic planning & measurable outcomes.
• Cybersecurity professionals should speak out about stress, raise awareness and identify signs and symptoms of stress in themselves and their colleagues, and explore ways to support their teams to address the root cause.

For the past 30 years, the cybersecurity industry has been driven by the private sector and it could be argued that not enough has been done to promote or support it from the Government or public sector.

With statistics showing that 91% of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) saying they suffer moderate or high stress, 60% adding they rarely disconnect and a quarter feeling that the job has had an impact on their mental or physical health, it’s clearly time for Government and industry bodies to take the lead and create a best practice mandate.

This charge has been led by a group of cybersecurity professionals who want to press for change and a call to action.

To help stakeholders get started in taking action to supporting the profession, a first level Charter has been created as is available to read on Virtually Informed , enabling organisations to begin recognising that their cybersecurity professionals may be in need of mental health support mechanisms now or at some time in the near future.

In response to the need for change, the IT Security Guru has launched a Cyber Mindfulness Corner as a peer-to-peer hub full of advice for battling burnout, mental health support resources, and the latest cyber mindfulness related news. The site aims to champion a more mindful industry, alongside professionals who share the same vision.

Yvonne Eskenzi, Founder of Eskenzi PR and co-founder of The Zensory – an app that bridges the gap between wellbeing and productivity says: “For too long we have watched our friends and colleagues in cybersecurity play the macho card, where wellbeing is not something we talk about and instead suffer in silence, self-medicate or worse still suffer mental breakdowns and leave the industry because the stress of staying in it is way too much.

“It’s time we took charge and gather together to make a difference, which is why we welcome what Sarb and his colleagues are pushing for.  We need leaders who see the reality of stressed staff and the catastrophic impact it can have – and together we need to vow to make a difference.

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“Companies should adapt a ‘cyber mindful’ mindset and lead the charge on this with a mindfulness toolkit that looks after the welfare of their staff.”

Yvonne continues: “It’s the reason we’ve put our money where our mouth is to support staff with The Zensory – an app that helps people keep calm and relax, as well as offer courses to help people work positively.

“So far over 40,000 people in the cybersecurity profession have tried the multi-sensory immersive platform to optimise their mood and find clarity and pause within the working day.”